Saccadic Scrolling: Speed Reading Strategy Based on Natural Eye Movements

We present a novel method of text presentation, saccadic scrolling, that translates average eye movement behavior into the movement of a line of text. It seeks to emulate the success of techniques such as rapid serial visual presentation in boosting reading speed, whilst maintaining the familiar line of text appearance. The parameters of saccadic scrolling are described and then tested in a reading speed study with 30 participants. Reading with saccadic scrolling was found to enable all participants to read faster than with continuous scrolling, on average by a factor of 5 times, and almost half to read faster than with rapid serial visual presentation, with a statistically equal average.