The Effect of Rapid Serial Visual Presentation Technology on Reading Recall and Comprehension

Overview

School Psychologist Many companies today promote speed-reading technology, the goal of which is to allow users to absorb more information in less time. However, before adopting such technology, it is important to know whether an increase in speed comes with a decrease in understanding of the material. The goal of this study was to determine whether a certain speed-reading technology, rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), can increase one’s reading speed without sacrificing one’s ability to recall and comprehend the information read. Subjects in this study read an 811 - word passage either in traditional paragraph form or using RSVP, which presents words one at a time on a computer screen at a predetermined rate. The subjects then answered questions relating to the passage to measure recall and comprehension. Analysis of the data determined that RSVP readers performed better than the control group on both recall and comprehension questions, with a statistically significant difference of 10 percentage points in average scores for recall questions (p=0.01496). Although further research should be done, both with increased reading speeds and different genres and lengths of passages, the implications of this study are that RSVP technology can in fact be used as an alternative to traditional reading, without sacrificing users’ ability to recall the information.

Competition history

• JSHS 2020 Category not listed

Resources

• National JSHS abstract book ↗

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