Looking At Content Longer Doesn’t Always Mean You Comprehend It Better

Much eye tracking studies assume that the longer you look at (or attend to) content,  the more you will remember, but no previous research probed this relationship.  This published study responds.
This exploratory experiment exposed participants to different text and graphic structures in health news. Results found that explanatory digital news structures enhanced learning with shorter viewing times as compared to the longer looks and less comprehension for the same content in the traditional “inverted pyramid” news stories. Explanatory graphics also enhanced learning in the explanatory digital news structure but graphics inhibited learning in the inverted pyramid news. In addition, graphics tended to increase viewing time on text and text combined with graphics for both story structures. These results suggest the importance of how news is structure for complex topics exposed to non-expert audiences.  In sum, longer viewing time (attention) does not always mean better comprehension and only certain structures of text with explanatory graphics increase understanding.