Attention shifting during the reading of Chinese sentences.

An eye-movement-contingent probe detection task was used to determine the allocation of visual attention during Chinese reading. On a subset of trials, a to-be-detected visual probe replaced visual text when the eyes crossed and landed to the right of an invisible interword boundary. The probe was either near the fixated location or at a more distant location in the right or left visual field. Probe detection latencies were shorter for probes that were closer to fixation, and they were shorter when the probes were shown in the right rather than the left visual field when word order progressed from left to right. A right visual field advantage also emerged when word order was reversed and progressed from right to left. These results indicate that the direction of shifts of attention is preset and progresses with a script-specific word order. This directional bias can account for asymmetric extensions of the perceptual span toward upcoming words during normal reading.