LEXICAL CONTROL OF WITHIN-WORD EYE-MOVEMENTS

Eye movements were recorded during the reading of long words, which we re presented in isolation at their optimal viewing position. Refixatio ns were found to be preferentially directed toward the region of the w ord that contained the critical letters for distinguishing it from its competitors. In Experiments 1 and 2, low-frequency stimulus words sha ring all letters except the initial ones with a high-frequency stimulu s word (critical letters at the beginning of the word) elicited more l eft refixations than low-frequency stimulus words sharing all letters except the final ones with a high-frequency stimulus word (critical le tters at the end of the word). A similar result tvas found in Experime nts 3 and 4, using an orthographic priming paradigm. These results sug gest that refixations are linked to the selection stage of lexical acc ess, aimed at isolating a single lexical entry among a set of candidat es activated during the first fixation.