Text Skimming: The Process and Effectiveness of Foraging ThroughText Under Time Pressure

摘要

Is Skim reading effective? How do readers allocate their attention selectively? The authors report 3experiments that use expository texts and allow readers only enough time to read half of each document.Experiment 1 found that, relative to reading half the text, skimming improved memory for importantideas from a text but did not improve memory of less important details or of inferences made frominformation within the text. Experiment 2 found no advantage of skimming over reading the first orsecond half of every paragraph. Two final experiments using a hierarchical, Website-like layout ofdocuments showed that the advantage of skimming found in Experiment I was dependent on the linkagesbetween pages and, thus, the ease with which participants could navigate through the text. Data onpage-by-page reading times and eye-tracking analyses from Experiment 2 indicated that Skim readersspent more time reading text that was earlier in the paragraph, toward the top of the page and in an earlierpage of the document. These findings were interpreted as evidence in support of a "satisficing" accountof skimming process.