Effect of cognitive style on text topic structure processing: an eye-tracking study

This study employed an eye-tracking methodology to explore the impact of cognitive style on the processing of text topic structure among colleges, achieved by manipulating cognitive style and sentence type. Readers’ cognitive styles were divided into field-dependent and field-independent categories using the Embedded Figure Test. The dependent variables include first-pass and second-pass fixation duration, corresponding fixation counts, and verification scores after reading each text. The results of the study indicate that participants devoted longer fixation duration and made more fixation counts on headings during the first-pass reading, devoted longer fixation duration, and made more fixation counts on topic sentences during the second-pass readings. The results also show that field-dependent readers exhibited longer fixation duration and more fixation count during the first-pass reading, but they obtained lower verification scores than field-independent readers. These findings imply that their reading outcomes differ, while field-dependent and field-independent readers allocate considerable attention to text topic structure.