Reading as an Individual Style: Investigation of the Stability of Reading Styles and their Relationship to Cognitive Strategies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46328/ijonse.5678Keywords:
Reading, Reading style, Cognitive style, Eye-tracking, PerceptionAbstract
The stability of reading strategies across different texts and tasks has been the subject of much discussion. It is not clear whether reading strategies combine to form individual reading styles, nor is the link to cognitive style. We applied eye-tracking technology to verify the concept of reading styles in reading tasks using specific eye-tracking metrics: mean length of saccades, frequency of regressions and transitions between paragraphs. To measure cognitive style, specifically analytic and holistic cognitive style, we used a Compound Figure Test (CFT). The results revealed that all the eye-tracking metrics applied in measuring reading strategies were stable across similar tasks. However, these reading strategies do not necessarily relate to each other to form a complex reading style. We also found no evidence for the assumption that reading strategies might be linked to the analytic-holistic dimension of cognitive style. Reading strategies metrics are stable across similar tasks. If we present differently structured tasks, a reading strategy can be modified. We did not find sufficient evidence to suggest a relationship between reading strategies/reading style and the analytic-holistic cognitive style.
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