Text segmentation affects oculomotor reading behaviour and reading comprehension
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36505/TheLinguisticProceedings/2025/17/02/005/000691Keywords:
reading, eye-tracking, text comprehension, text segmentationAbstract
Modern digital reading tools often segment texts into smaller units to improve attention and comprehension, but evidence on their effectiveness is mixed. This study examined how segmentation affects eye-movement patterns and comprehension. Participants read either full texts, paragraph-by-paragraph, or sentence-by-sentence, and answered comprehension questions after each text. Eye movements were recorded and analyzed using mixed-effects models. Comprehension was highest in the sentence condition, suggesting that segmentation supports local integration and reduces distractions. Fulltext reading led to longer reading times, more regressions, and stronger global wrap-up effect, whereas sentence-level segmentation increased local processing but resulted in more efficient comprehension overall.References
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Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
