Ali Bhimani¹ (), A. Caglar Tas¹; ¹The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

In the past, speed-reading research has found a negative correlation between reading speed and reading comprehension. Methods such as rapid serial visual presentation have attempted to counter this negative correlation to no avail. However, there has been little research testing the effect of artificial fixation points (AFPs) on reading speed and comprehension. AFPs are implemented by altering the characteristics of the letters (e.g., changing the emphasis with bolded letters or changing the color) to cue participants where they should fixate in a given word. In the present study we tested whether AFPs may improve reading speed and text comprehension. We hypothesized that both reading comprehension and reading speed would increase with AFPs compared to no AFPs. To test this, we presented participants with six texts that varied in difficulty (two easy, two moderate, and two difficult). In Experiment 1, participants were asked to read the texts with no emphasis on speed. Text comprehension was measured with five questions at the end of each text. We used eye data collected in Experiment 1 to determine the locations of AFPs in Experiment 2. In Experiment 2, participants were presented with the same six texts, but half of them were altered with AFPs. AFPs were created by changing the font color of the first half of selected words to red. Preliminary results (N=10) showed that text difficulty significantly affected both reading speed and comprehension with difficult texts having slower reading speed and worse comprehension than moderate which was also significantly worse than easy texts (all ps<.014). Further, texts that contained AFPs led to significantly faster reading speed compared to texts with no AFPs (p<.001). However, text altering did not affect comprehension. These results suggest that text altering can benefit reading speed without negatively affecting reading comprehension, contrary to previous findings with speed reading.