A Study On College Students' Eye Movements In Reading Scientific Articles With Illustrations

Any educational tools or educational materials have to keep development. So dose text book. Improving the illustrations is one of those important innovations. The illustrations have a unique cognitive value compare with text only, when convey information. Therefore, study the function of illustrations, the cognitive function of illustrations and factors that impact the validity of illustrations could offer some constructive proposal to textbook design. If the illustrations play a positive role when reading article, then dose the position of illustrated matter? Whether the location of illustrations caused readers attention distribution? Which position is suitable for readers? In other words, whether the same illustrations have different effect when the location is different? These questions will be discussed in the study. And which is the reason for me to choose this study. According the experiment, this study will give some practical proposals also.In this study, eye tracking system was used to explore the reading effect of college students, when reading illustrations with different presenting mode or location. Results as following:First, in the experiment of reading illustrations with different presenting mode, six indicators was observed: reading performance, reading time, gaze duration, fixation times, saccade distance and back to target times, and the findings shows that, there were different between reading materials. Color illustrations had best effect, text only had the worst, and black-and-white illustrations had a moderate effect.Materials chosen in this study are abstract and difficulty to understand. That may be the cause of this phenomenon. For this kind of information, illustrations can provide the characterization of the space, reducing the burden of logic thinking, and also help to understanding important concept, adding corresponding parts to semantic representation, or operation on some part of existing characterization. Subjects can also see the article more comprehensive in the illustrations, thus facilitate the integration of information of reference characterization. When characters and illustrations combined effectively during reading, its help forming of semantic and image encoding. Processing and integrating of two kind of information facilitate understanding when reading.Second, based on the experiment of reading illustrations with different presenting mode, a experiment of different illustrations location was executed. According observe the six indicators, the findings show that, reading performance change while illustrations location change. More specific: illustrations on the left side had best results, illustrations above and below the text had worst results. Analyze the reason: our eye move from left to right when reading. So subjects see illustrations first. Illustrations are intuitive and integral; they build a image code in brain, and saved as visual working memory. Then subject see characters, and save as auditory memory. When reading from left to right, Connection between image code and semantic code could establish quickly. If the characters are on the left of illustration, subjects would see characters first. Because character is abstract, it's hard to understand, readers can't bring new cognition pattern to their cognitive constructions. This increase time of reading. Therefore, illustrations on the left are better.Since this study attempts to find the best reading results with different illustrations location, illustrations above and below the characters are not discussed.The novelty of this study is:First, previous studies about illustrations, especially colored illustration, focus on theory study. The present study executed systemic experiment study, and make up the lankness of positivity in previous studies.Second, there is no positivity study about location of illustrations present. The present study has conducted a explore, extended the scope of illustrations and character research.Third, the present study investigate illustration presenting mode and location systemic, provide a psychology basis to designing of textbook.Deficiencies of this study:First, age differences were not considered in present study, lacking in discuss of development rule.Second, materials used in the experiment were scientific exposition lacking in discuss of different type of illustration and character. Third, because of the experimental equipment limitations, the experimental materials used in this study had fewer words, the external validity of experiments need further verification?Fourth, the present study based on electronic version, whether it's different from printed text still need to be Verification.Inspiration to illustration design and classroom teaching:Inspiration to illustration design:Illustrations are important to scientific exposition. Illustrations and character should combine closely. Scientific exposition is hard to understand; students could have difficult to understand with characters or illustrations only. Without character, reader could only get perception; it is difficult to build specific logic. With out illustrations reader could only make logical reasoning, it is difficult to set up image in brain. Either facilitates reading process. Character and illustrations provide semantic and image information, they complement each other. Combination of them can understand text more efficient.Locations of illustrations also are important. The present study showed that: when presented in different mode, Colored illustration is the best, in different location, illustrations on the left is the best.Inspiration to classroom teaching:Pay attention to illustrations in class is important. Make good use of illustrations, and combine it with other strategies, build up a concept that illustrations in service to teaching. Emphasize on the role of illustrations does not mean that illustrations could load all the basic knowledge by itself, but one element. Therefore, in order to enhance the efficiency of classroom teaching, to strengthen the contact between the illustrations and characters is needed. With the development of modern information technology development and popularization, there are more picture information resources. Teachers should make full use of multimedia, networks and other modern information technologies; choose illustrations relating to teaching content, in order to promote teaching.