Word selection in reading sentences: preceding versus following contexts

A new task, double-word selection, simulated lexical ambiguity by presenting 2 words between which the reader had to choose while reading a sentence shown at 133 or 150 ms/word, following a procedure called rapid serial visual presentation. The double-word pair was presented for less than 100 ms. In immediate recall of the sentence, readers made a correct selection on most trials, both when the relevant context came before the double words and (less accurately) when the relevant context came shortly afterward (Experiments 1 and 2) or with a delay of up to 1 s (Experiment 3). Both words could often be reported if the sentence was stopped one word after the double words (Experiment 2). In Experiment 4, a single function word determined selection between double words differing in syntactic category. The results are consistent with a 2-stage modular interactive model of word perception (M. C. Potter, A. Moryadas, I. Abrams, & A. Noel, 1993) and extend this model to word selection and lexical disambiguation.