Reading sequentially-presented Chinese text: effects of display format

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Abstract
Chinese text segments were sequentially presented to a single location of a computer screen at rates of 300 and 600 characters per min (CPM). These segments were either structured ‘idea units’ or random segments of equal length. The random segments were shown for equal amounts of time (the uniform condition). The display duration for each idea unit was determined either by its physical size (the structured-fixed condition) or according to the mean reading time in self-paced reading task of a pilot study (the structured-observed condition). Reading performance was assessed using multiple choice comprehension questions. Results showed that the two structured conditions were superior to the uniform condition. Also, the good readers performed better in the structured-observed condition than in the structured-fixed condition when the display rate was 600 CPM. When the display rate was 300 CPM, the poor readers showed a similar effect. These results suggest that the structured-observed condition could be superior to other presentation formats for reading sequentially-presented text.