Abstract
BackgroundHighlighted text in the Internet (i.e., hypertext) is predominantly blue and underlined. The perceptibility of these hypertext characteristics was heavily questioned by applied research and empirical tests resulted in inconclusive results. The ability to recognize blue text in foveal and parafoveal vision was identified as potentially constrained by the low number of foveally centered blue light sensitive retinal cells. The present study investigates if foveal and parafoveal perceptibility of blue hypertext is reduced in comparison to normal black text during reading.MethodsA silent-sentence reading study with simultaneous eye movement recordings and the invisible boundary paradigm, which allows the investigation of foveal and parafoveal perceptibility, separately, was realized (comparing fixation times after degraded vs. un-degraded parafoveal previews). Target words in sentences were presented in either black or blue and either underlined or normal.ResultsNo effect of color and underlining, but a preview benefit could be detected for first pass reading measures. Fixation time measures that included re-reading, e.g., total viewing times, showed, in addition to a preview effect, a reduced fixation time for not highlighted (black not underlined) in contrast to highlighted target words (either blue or underlined or both).DiscussionThe present pattern reflects no detectable perceptual disadvantage of hyperlink stimuli but increased attraction of attention resources, after first pass reading, through highlighting. Blue or underlined text allows readers to easily perceive hypertext and at the same time readers re-visited highlighted words longer. On the basis of the present evidence, blue hypertext can be safely recommended to web designers for future use.
Highlights
The Internet plays an important role in our daily life
A decrease in reading speed resulting from both reduced parafoveal preprocessing and foveal perception would be drastic when considering how often hypertext is perceived
Such a decrease in reading efficiency would indicate that the use of blue underlined hypertext could not be recommended
Summary
The Internet plays an important role in our daily life. One of the first and most critical advantages of the Internet is the use of hypertext. Fitzsimmons, Weal & Drieghe (2013) investigated the influence of colored words on eye movement measures and found a reduced skipping probability (i.e., the probability of not fixating a word) of blue words, which were embedded in single line sentences Their paradigm allows to examine both foveal and parafoveal processing combined during silent reading of sentences. The finding of the second experiment from Fitzsimmons, Weal & Drieghe (2013) is in line with this highlighting hypothesis There they found no skipping effect difference between blue and black written text but showed that late eye movement measures were prolonged in case seldom, blue written words were fixated. The underlining aspect is crucial here as longer fixation durations for blue text in contrast to underlined black target words would exclude the possibility that such a difference would be the result of highlighting Both parafoveal and foveal findings would indicate a hampered bottom-up processing of blue hypertext. If color or underlining results in independent highlighting effects (e.g., underlining effect when the target word is not colored), one can even recommend text underlining or coloring independently for hypertext use
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