I Can’t Hear What I’m Reading: An Eye Tracking Study on Reading in Different Noise Environments

Abstract: This study investigates how different acoustic environments and spelling manipulations affect the reading process by applying eye tracking methodology. Participants are asked to read sentences while either listening to babble noise or not being exposed to any acoustic stimuli. It was generally possible to understand semantic chunks of the babble noise but not the discourse. The reading material was manipulated by including misspelled words that either do or do not resemble the original word’s phonology. A screen-based eye tracking system was used to measure participants first fixation duration, total fixation duration and number of fixations. Using a linear mixed effects model to analyze the effects of the different spelling and acoustic conditions as well as their interactions. The different spelling conditions showed first evidence for the pseudohomophone advantage effect in the Swedish language applying to total fixation duration and number of fixations. Noise distraction did not show significant effects. Regarding working memory, this implies that babble noise does not affect the capacity for the processing of written text which further suggests that processing discourse is more relevant in causing distraction effects than processing semantics. Further theoretical as well as practical implications are discussed.