Effect of a "chunked" typography on reading rate and comprehension

Abstract

3 studies with 104 undergraduates investigated the effect of a chunked typography on the reading rate and comprehension of mature readers, reading at their normal rates. Passages and questions from a standardized reading test were displayed via an electromechanical device which allowed actual reading times to be recorded. 5 experimental chunked formats were compared with each other and 1 selected for further study. The chunking of the material was arbitrarily intuitive but a subsequent analysis indicated that the chunked boundaries usually coincided with the major phrase boundaries of immediate constituents. There was no important or statistically significant difference between the experimental chunked format and the control format, either on the reading rate or comprehension measures. Another control format, no punctuation or capitalization, did result in significant decrements in reading rate and comprehension. It is concluded that the spatial separation of reading materials into groups of meaningfully related words does not improve the reading efficiency of mature readers when they are reading at their normal rate. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1970 American Psychological Association.