parafovea
Parafovea or the parafoveal belt is a region in the retina that circumscribes the fovea and is part of the macula lutea.{{cite book|author1=Myron Yanoff|author2=Jay S. Duker|title=Ophthalmology: Expert Consult: Online and Print|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XfABAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA421|date=6 November 2013|publisher=Elsevier Health Sciences|isbn=978-1-4557-5001-6|pages=421}} It is circumscribed by the perifovea.
Effect on reading
In reading, information within 1° (approximately 6–8 characters) of the point of fixation is processed in foveal vision, while information up to 6° of visual angle benefits from parafoveal preview.{{cite journal|last1=Engbert|first1=Ralf|last2=Longtin|first2=André|last3=Kliegl|first3=Reinhold|title=A dynamical model of saccade generation in reading based on spatially distributed lexical processing|journal=Vision Research|date=2002|volume=42|issue=5|pages=621–636|doi=10.1016/s0042-6989(01)00301-7|pmid=11853779|doi-access=}} Studies have shown that people can tell the difference in the letters of a word in the fovea and near-parafovea (the part of the parafovea closest to the fovea), but not in the outer edges of the parafovea.{{cite book|author=Matthew J. Traxler|title=Introduction to Psycholinguistics: Understanding Language Science|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TWM8MYHdgY0C&pg=RA1-PT104|date=14 October 2011|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-1-4443-4457-8|pages=1}} In languages that read from left to right, the word immediately to the right of the fixated word is known as the parafoveal word. Information present in the parafovea can interact with information present in the fovea.{{cite journal|last1=Kennedy|first1=A.|title=Parafoveal processing in word recognition|journal=The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology|date=2000|volume=53|issue=A|pages=429–455|doi=10.1080/027249800390556}} The benefit the parafoveal preview has is also mediated by how common the word in the parafovea is, with less common words providing less of a reduction in fixation duration when they reach foveal fixation.{{cite journal|last1=Inhoff|first1=Albrecht Werner|last2=Rayner|first2=Keith|title=Parafoveal word processing during eye fixations in reading: Effects of word frequency|journal=Perception & Psychophysics|date=1986|volume=40|issue=6|pages=431–439|doi=10.3758/bf03208203|doi-access=free}} As the clarity of information in the parafovea is not as great as in the fovea, the SWIFT model of eye movements in reading, while allowing for parallel processing, accounts for this difference by assigning the parafoveal less processing power the further away it is from the foveal fixation.
Effect on scene perception
Information in the parafovea can influence the processing of a scene. In categorization tasks of natural scenes information from the parafovea can be used to determine the gist of a scene well enough for a categorization judgement, though with reduced sensitivity and speed in comparison to foveal vision.{{cite journal|last1=Thibaut|first1=Miguel|last2=Tran|first2=Thi Ha Chau|last3=Szaffarczyk|first3=Sebastien|last4=Boucart|first4=Muriel|title=The contribution of central and peripheral vision in scene categorization: A study on people with central vision loss|journal=Vision Research|date=2014|volume=98|pages=46–53|doi=10.1016/j.visres.2014.03.004|pmid=24657253|doi-access=free}} An effect of parafoveal preview has also been found for emotional scenes presented in the parafovea, with people more likely shift their fixation point on emotional stimuli than neutral stimuli, when both options are presented parafoveally.{{cite journal|last1=Calvo|first1=Manuel G.|last2=Lang|first2=Peter J.|title=Parafoveal Semantic Processing of Emotional Visual Scenes|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance|date=2005|volume=31|issue=3|pages=502–519|doi=10.1037/0096-1523.31.3.502|pmid=15982128}}
Additional images
File:Macula lutea.svg|Schematic diagram of the macula lutea of the retina, showing perifovea, parafovea, fovea, and clinical macula
File:Retina-OCT800.png|Time-Domain OCT of the macular area of a retina at 800 nm, axial resolution 3 μm
File:SD-OCT Macula Cross-Section.png|Spectral-Domain OCT macula cross-section scan.
File:Macula Histology OCT.jpg|alt=macula histology (OCT)|macula histology (OCT)
File:Retinography.jpg|A fundus photograph showing the macula as a spot to the left. The optic disc is the area on the right where blood vessels converge. The grey, more diffuse spot in the centre is a shadow artifact.