Two experiments examined the nature of the phonological representations used during visual word recognition. We tested whether a minimality constraint (R. Frost, 1998) limits the complexity of early representations to a simple string of phonemes. Alternatively, readers might activate elaborated representations that include prosodic syllable…

Recent eye movement experiments offer preliminary evidence that skilled readers activate word-level prosodic information when silently reading sentences. This paper reviews the role of eye movements during reading as well as the preliminary evidence for prosodic processing. A new experiment examines whether prosodic processing differs for high and…

Two eye movement experiments investigated the nature of the phonological representations used in reading English. Each tested whether sublexical, syllable information is part of that representation. Target words with CV-initial syllables (DE.MAND) or CVC-initial syllables (LAN.TERN) were preceded by primes that exactly matched or mismatched their…