Effects of reading span and textual coherence on rapid-sequential reading

Abstract

Subjects' Comprehension and Memory of Conventional Presentations (Pages) And Rapid, Serial Visual Presentations (Rsvps) Of Text Were Investigated With A Statement-Recognition Test. Texts Were Presented With Sentences in An Intact Or A Scrambled Order At Rates Of 300 And 600 Words Per Minute (Wpm). Subjects' Memory for Text Meaning And Surface Structure Was Better In 300-Than In 600-Wpm Conditions, And Subjects Retained More Textual Meaning From Coherent than Incoherent Texts Regardless of Display Rates. These Findings Are Inconsistent With the Idea That Rapid Reading Disrupts the Intersentence Integration Processes of Comprehension, but are Consistent With The Hypothesis of Consolidation Limitation: Furthermore, Subjects Were Separated Into Two Groups Based on Their Performance on the Reading Span Test of Daneman And Carpenter (1980). Low-Span Subjects Retained Significantly Less Text Meaning than High-Span Subjects with Pages, But They Did Almost As Well With RSVPs. This Interaction Suggests that the RSVP Technique Could Be Useful For Improving the Reading Abilities of Less Efficient Readers. © 1986 Psychonomic Society, Inc.