Evidence for a Reduction of the Rightward Extent of the Perceptual Span When Reading Dynamic Horizontally Scrolling Text

The dynamic horizontally scrolling text format produces a directional conflict in the allocation of attention for reading, with a necessity to track each word leftward (in the direction of movement) concurrently with normal rightward shifts made to progress through the text (in left-to-right orthographies such as English). The gaze-contingent window paradigm was used to compare the extent of the perceptual span in reading of scrolling and static sentences. Across two experiments, this investigation confirmed that the allocation of attentional resources to the right of fixation was compressed with scrolling text. There was no evidence for a reversal of the direction of asymmetry or a confounding shift of landing position.