Influence Of EFL Learners’ Cognitive Style On Multimodal Reading:An Eye-tracking Study

Multimodal reading refers to the reading of information that combines text with other modes,which has increasingly been a major form of reading in the age of multimedia information as well as one of the hot issues in the research of foreign language reading teaching.As essential factors of meaning construction,studies have found that images may influence the extent to which different cognitive style learners process multimodal text,especially the widely concerned representational picture and organizational picture.Previous studies mainly focus on L1 reading or picture-text relevance concerning cognitive style.However,there is a need for a more thorough investigation that combines the field of cognitive style and text modal characteristics to enhance instructional text design.Therefore,the study focuses on the cognitive process of different cognitive style learners when reading multimodal texts.Two questions are answered: 1)What discrepancies exist in attentional allocation and reading performance between learners of English as a foreign language(EFL)with field-dependent and field-independent cognitive styles when reading English multimodal texts? 2)How can the modal form of reading materials be tailored to accommodate different cognitive styles and enhance English reading efficiency?The mixed design experiment has two field-cognitive styles(field dependence or field independence)and three presentation modes(text alone,multimodal text with representational picture and multimodal text with organizational picture)as independent variables,with eye-tracking data,comprehension test score,ratings of situational interest and perceived ease as dependent variables.Using eye-tracking technology,the multimodal reading process of different cognitive style learners was tracked.Seventy college students,who had successfully passed the College English Test-band 6(CET-6),voluntarily participated in a cognitive style questionnaire(GEFT).From this group,forty-two individuals with different cognitive styles of field dependence and field independence were selected to take part in an eye-tracking experiment.To ensure the stimuli equality,three passages were chosen from the reading comprehension part of CET-6 that had no significant variation in readability,topic familiarity,and word count.Two types of pictures were created based on the content of each text: representational pictures and organizational pictures.Each of the three texts contained four multiple-choice questions that were not significantly different from one another.Participants were required to finish the experimental tasks including a comprehension test,and self-report of situational interest and perceived ease on a 5-point Likert scale.Using SPSS 22.0,repeated-measures analysis of variance was conducted on the eye movement data of picture and text AOIs,including fixation count,total fixation duration and average saccadic amplitude,as well as on the score results,including comprehension test score,situational interest score and perceived ease score.Eye movement result indicates that field-cognitive style influences the attention allocation of learners in their reading of English multimodal texts.Field-dependent learners(FD)were more dependent on picture information with more fixation count on a representational picture and shorter average saccadic amplitude when processing organizational picture,whereas field-independent learners(FI)learners fixated more on text AOIs with wider average saccadic amplitude on text AOIs and higher reading comprehension score.The result of scores indicates that multimodal text is more beneficial for improving learners’ reading interest and reading comprehension in that the comprehension test scores of multimodal text are significantly higher than that of text alone and the situational interest score of multimodal text with a representational picture was the highest.The study provides a scientific reference for the multimodal instructional material design.For instance,it is better for FD learners to design multimodal text with representational pictures and organizational pictures to boost learning interest and to improve reading comprehension,while for FI learners it is better to design multimodal text with organizational pictures to improve reading comprehension.In foreign language teaching practice,it is expected to contribute to English foreign language learners’ reading comprehension by accommodating learners’ cognitive styles to the multimodal text with different presentation modes.