In reply to White spaces:
I imagine letter recognition in the parafovea as being like a game of battleships.
Or the blind man feeling different parts of the elephant and trying to infer what the whole animal is.
In other words, you don’t perceive a blurry image of a whole letter or word, but you get enough on/off data points to be able to infer a general range of possibilities.
Yes, you got a hit!—but is it a sub or an aircraft carrier?