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Abstract
Research has suggested that during reading, parafoveal information pertaining to the
next word in a line might be, at least partially, processed. We used event-related
brain potentials (ERPs) to examine this issue. Volunteers read sentences presented
word-by-word at fixation with each word flanked bilaterally on its right by the next
word in the sentence and on its left by the preceding word. Infrequently, the right
flanker was replaced by a word that was semantically incongruous with the ongoing
sentence context. N400 amplitudes to the critical triads were smaller when the right
flanker was contextually congruent than incongruent, indicating that parafoveal information
was extracted and quickly and incrementally integrated within the evolving sentence
representation.
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