Effects reflecting serial within-word processing are frequently found in pseudo- and non-word recognition tasks not only among fluent, but especially among dyslexic readers. However, the time course and locus of these serial within-word processing effects in the cognitive hierarchy (i.e., orthographic, phonological, lexical) have remained elusive. We studied whether a subject's eye movements during a lexical decision task would provide information about the temporal dynamics of serial within-word processing. We assumed that if there is serial within-word processing proceeding from left to right, items with informative beginnings would attract the gaze position and (micro-)saccadic eye movements earlier in time relative to those with informative endings. In addition, we compared responses to word, non-word, and pseudo-word items to study whether serial within-word processing stems mainly from a lexical, orthographic, or phonological processing level, respectively. Gaze positions showed)