Reading of Continuous Text on Video Screens

Abstract

In three experiments, the finding of slower reading of text from a video screen than from a book was replicated, and several possible reasons for this effect were explored. Extra time (9 s) taken to fill the screen had no significant effect on reading time in the video condition. Similarly, varying the contrast ratio of the video image and the distance between the screen and the reader had no effect on reading speed. The format used in the video condition (39 characters per line and 20 lines per page) produced slower reading than did a format typical for books (60 characters per line and 40 lines per page), but this effect alone (9.5%) could not account for the difference in reading speed between the book and video conditions (24.1%). The reduced reading speed was partly overcome by avoiding single spacing, which produced 10.9% slower reading than did double spacing in the video condition.

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