In reply to White spaces:
less important words
The more experience you have with context and bouma resolution, and the more distinctive the context and the bouma, the more more words become "less important", allowing you to overcome more lack of clarity.
It's easier to tell apart "help" & "holy" than "and" & "mad" deeper into the parafovea. And/so is "and" not important? Sometimes -like when it might be an "or"- it's very important. This business of "function words" being ignored is a damaging over-simplification; nothing is ignored, and anything can be resolved upto a point in the parafovea when the context and bouma are good enough; this is what long saccades are about, and this is where the under-appreciation of the parafovea falls apart.
hhp