Testing an assumption of the E-Z Reader model of eye-movement control during reading: using event-related potentials to examine the familiarity check.

According to the E-Z Reader model of eye-movement control, the completion of an early stage of lexical processing, the familiarity check, causes the eyes to move forward during reading (Reichle, Pollatsek, Fisher, & Rayner, 1998). Here, we report an event-related potential (ERP) experiment designed to examine the hypothesized familiarity check at the electrophysiological level. The results indicate ERP components modulated by word frequency at the time of the predicted familiarity check. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that an early stage of lexical processing is linked to the "decisions" about when to move the eyes during reading.