Do Females Read Faster than Males? An Empirical Study Using Eye Tracking Systems
Ahmed Emam, Ahmed E. Youssef · 2012
Most people believe that the slower we read the better we comprehend. However, a lot of novel rapid reading techniques and methods were developed to increase the reading speed without diminishing the comprehension. In this research an empirical study was performed to investigate if there is a difference in speed reading between males and females. The initial hypothesis in this research was the assumptions that there is NO difference between male and female in reading speed. Ten undergraduate and graduate students participated in achieving this experiment; five females and five males using head mounted eye trackers ASL 6000 series. The experiment results showed that there is a difference in speed reading between males and females. Females spend longer time between consecutive segments than males and they spend longer time on each segment than males in the reading process.. Females might have taken long time to focus and concentrate on understating the topic while males might have read fast without guarantee to comprehend. These results help psychology and computer science researchers to develop adaptive reading materials and devices.