The use of information below fixation in reading and in visual search

Two experiments examined whether or not readers obtain useful information from below the currently fixated line. In Experiment 1, subjects read passages of text and the availability of visual information below the line fixated was manipulated using a variant of the moving window technique. Reading was no slower when there was no letter information below the fixated line than when there was full information below the fixated line. However, a condition which made the strings of letters below the fixated line less "wordlike" caused reading to be slowed down by about 6% relative to the other conditions. In Experiment 2, subjects searched for a target word through passages of text. Subjects occasionally detected targets below the line they were fixating; however, there was no clear evidence that the availability of information below the line made search more efficient. It thus appears that in reading (or in other tasks where words are being identified and the eyes move horizontally along a line of text), little visual information is extracted below the line of text fixated.