Buffering new information during reading

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Abstract
We report results from two subject‐paced reading experiments in which word‐reading times were collected using the moving‐window method. Word type, the amount of information at successive locations within sentences, and task were the independent variables, and word‐reading time was the dependent variable. Reading times increased with successive locations, as indexed by the cumulative number of new arguments per sentence. There was an interaction involving word type, such that reading times of content words increased more steeply than reading times of function words. Among content words, the increase was steeper for nouns than for verbs; and, among nouns, the increase was steeper for new nouns than for repeated nouns. The results are discussed in terms of buffer models of reading, the processing of different lexical classes, and hypotheses which predict serial position effects.

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