Navigating the narrative: An eye-tracking study of readers' strategies when Reading comic page layouts |
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| Authors: | Clare Kirtley Christopher Murray Phillip B Vaughan Benjamin W Tatler |
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| Institution: | 1. School of Psychology, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, UK;2. School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK;3. Duncan of Jordanstone, College of Art and Design, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK |
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| Abstract: | In multimedia stimuli (e.g., comics), the reader must follow a narrative in which text and image both contribute information, and artists may use more irregular layouts which must still be followed correctly. While previous work has found that the external structure (outlines) of panels is a major contributor to navigation decisions in comics, other studies have shown that panel content can affect reading order. The present studies use eye-tracking to investigate these contributions further. In Experiment 1, the reading behaviors on six layout variations were compared. The influence of the external structure was replicated, but an effect of text location was also found for one layout type. Experiment 2 focused on variations of this particular layout, manipulating the location of text within critical panels. Panel content was a consistent effect for all variations. While most navigation decisions are made using the external structure, content becomes key when resolving ambiguous layouts. |
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| Keywords: | attention comic structure eye-tracking reading word-image combination |
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