Reading a dynamic presentation of Chinese text on a single-line display

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of presentation method and presentation rate on reading a dynamic presentation of Chinese text on a single-line display. A novel presentation concept that Chinese word as a presentation unit was examined. Twenty-four subjects completed 12 experimental treatments composed of four presentation methods (i.e., leading format with conventional layout or LC, rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) format with conventional layout or RC, leading format with inter-word spacing or LW, and RSVP format with word or RW) and three presentation rates (120-, 240- and 500-character-per-minute). The results revealed that recall accuracy and satisfaction score for the leading format were better than the RSVP format. Furthermore, the layouts that used words as presentation units were better than the conventional layout in which characters were the presentation units. Subjects’ performance deteriorated when presentation rate was at a high speed of 500 characters per minute, particularly for the RSVP method with conventional layout. The implications of the results on reading a dynamic presentation of Chinese text are discussed.