The impact of skim reading and navigation when reading hyperlinks on the web

Abstract

It has been shown that readers spend a great deal of time skim reading on the Web and that this type of reading can affect lexical processing of words. Across two experiments, we utilised eye tracking methodology to explore how hyperlinks and navigating webpages affect reading behaviour. In Experiment 1, participants read static Webpages either for comprehension or whilst skim reading, while in Experiment 2, participants additionally read through a navigable Web environment. Embedded target words were either hyperlinks or not and were either high-frequency or low-frequency words. Results from Experiment 1 show that while readers lexically process both linked and unlinked words when reading for comprehension, readers only fully lexically process linked words when skim reading, as was evidenced by a frequency effect that was absent for the unlinked words. They did fully lexically process both linked and unlinked words when reading for comprehension. In Experiment 2, which allowed for navigating, readers only fully lexically processed linked words compared to unlinked words, regardless of whether they were skim reading or reading for comprehension. We suggest that readers engage in an efficient reading strategy where they attempt to minimise comprehension loss while maintaining a high reading speed. Readers use hyperlinks as markers to suggest important information and use them to navigate through the text in an efficient and effective way. The task of reading on the Web causes readers to lexically process words in a markedly different way from typical reading experiments.

Fig 1. Example Wikipedia stimulus with examples of high and low frequency words in linked and unlinked form.

Note. Wikipedia branding removed from example for copyright purposes–full version of stimuli can be seen here: https://goo.gl/JLvvMD.

Fig 2. Two-way interaction between Word Frequency and Task Type in Experiment 1.

Means and standard error bars for skipping probability.

Fig 3. Three-way interaction between Word Frequency, Word Type and Task Type in Experiment 1.

Means and standard error bars for single fixation durations.

Fig 4. Two-way interaction between word frequency and Task Type in Experiment 1.

Means and standard error bars for log-transformed go-past time.

Fig 5. Two-way interaction between Word Type and Task Type for Experiment 2.

Means and standard error bars for first fixation duration, single fixation duration and gaze duration.

Fig 6. Two-way interaction between Word Frequency and Word Type for Experiment 2.

Means and standard error bars for gaze duration, go-past time and total time.