Abstract
The mass digitization of books is changing the way information is created, disseminated and displayed. Electronic book readers (e-readers) generally refer to two main display technologies: the electronic ink (E-ink) and the liquid crystal display (LCD). Both technologies have advantages and disadvantages, but the question whether one or the other triggers less visual fatigue is still open. The aim of the present research was to study the effects of the display technology on visual fatigue. To this end, participants performed a longitudinal study in which two last generation e-readers (LCD, E-ink) and paper book were tested in three different prolonged reading sessions separated by - on average - ten days. Results from both objective (Blinks per second) and subjective (Visual Fatigue Scale) measures suggested that reading on the LCD (Kindle Fire HD) triggers higher visual fatigue with respect to both the E-ink (Kindle Paperwhite) and the paper book. The absence of differences between E-ink and paper suggests that, concerning visual fatigue, the E-ink is indeed very similar to the paper.
Highlights
Reading behavior has been investigated by psychologists for several decades, some of them focusing on low-level processing of words such as visibility [1] or legibility [2] and others on comprehension levels [3], [4], [5]
The aim of the present research was to study the effects of the display technology on visual fatigue using prolonged reading sessions [16]
The aim of the present study was to compare prolonged reading on three different supports regarding their effects on visual fatigue
Summary
Reading behavior has been investigated by psychologists for several decades, some of them focusing on low-level processing of words such as visibility [1] or legibility [2] and others on comprehension levels [3], [4], [5]. The visibility processing (i.e. distinguishing a visual signal from the background) is not a matter of interest in reading since everyone assumes that visual factors are generally fitted in reading experiments. This assumption would be true if any linguistic material was presented on the same support. In the real world this cannot be true, and the use of computer displays for presenting linguistic material may involve a large variability. It has been shown that the display polarity (negative/positive polarity) [7] or the refresh rate [8], [9] might affect vision during reading
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