On‐line processing of summary and importance signals in reading

Abstract

How do readers respond to signals in a text that certain information is relevant? Subjects in Experiment 1 read texts a sentence at a time while their reading times were recorded for specific target sentences. Subjects took longer to read a summary sentence if the preceding sentence signaled it as a summary than if no preceding signal was provided. Further, the effect of signaling a summary was larger for poor readers than for good readers. There was no corresponding effect of signaling on reading times for sentences marked as important statements, but Experiment 2 demonstrated that recall of important text information was enhanced if the information was signaled rather than unsignaled. The results demonstrate that experienced readers use text signals to guide their attention to relevant information in a text.