Despite reported dislike, older readers put in less effort when using e-readers

Older adults put in less effort to read text on tablet computers, but effects not seen in younger adults

2013-02-07

(Press-News.org) Reading text on digital devices like tablet computers requires less effort from older adults than reading on paper, according to research published February 6 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Matthias Schlesewsky and colleagues from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany, in collaboration with colleagues from Georg August University Göttingen and the University of Marburg, Germany.

In the past, surveys have shown that people prefer to read paper books rather than on e-readers or tablet computers. Here, the authors evaluated the origins of this preference in terms of the neural effort required to process information read on these three different media. They found that when asked, both young and old adults stated a strong preference for paper books, but when they compared eye movements and brain activity measures, older adults fared better with backlit digital readers like tablet computers.

The authors measured two parameters in the readers: time required for visual fixation, and EEG measures of brain activity with the different reading devices to identify the amount of cognitive processing required for each device.

The researchers found that younger readers between the ages of 21 and 34 showed similar eye movements and EEG measures of brain activity across the three reading devices. Older adults aged 60-77 years spent less time fixating the text and showed lower brain activity when using a tablet computer, as compared to the other media. The study concludes that this effect is likely due to better text discrimination on the backlit displays. None of the participants in the study had trouble comprehending what they had read on any of the devices, but based on the physiological measures assessed, the researchers suggest that older readers may benefit from the enhanced contrast on electronic reading devices.

### Citation: Kretzschmar F, Pleimling D, Hosemann J, Fussel S, Bornkessel-Schlesewsky I, et al. (2013) Subjective Impressions Do Not Mirror Online Reading Effort: Concurrent EEG-Eyetracking Evidence from the Reading of Books and Digital Media. PLoS ONE 8(2): e56178. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0056178

Financial Disclosure: Parts of the research reported here were supported by the German Research Foundation (www.dfg.de; grant SCHL544/6-1), the Research Unit Media Convergence at the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz (www.medienkonvergenz.uni-mainz.de) and the MVB (Marketing- und Verlagsservice des Buchhandels GmbH) of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, Frankfurt/Main (www.mvb-online.de). No additional external funding was received for this study. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing Interest Statement: The authors confirm that their commercial funder Marketing- und Verlagsservice des Buchhandels GmbH did not influence the study reported here in any way and that this source of funding does not compromise the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies. All data and materials are accessible in accordance with the journal's sharing policy. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

PLEASE LINK TO THE SCIENTIFIC ARTICLE IN ONLINE VERSIONS OF YOUR REPORT (URL goes live after the embargo ends): http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0056178

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Features of southeast European human ancestors influenced by lack of episodic glaciations

2013-02-07

A fragment of human lower jaw recovered from a Serbian cave is the oldest human ancestor found in this part of Europe, who probably evolved under different conditions than populations that inhabited more western parts of the continent at the same time, according to research published February 6 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by William Jack Rink of McMaster University, Canada, and the international team under the direction of Dušan Mihailović, University of Belgrade, Serbia, and Mirjana Roksandic, University of Winnipeg, Canada. The fossil was found to be ...

Antibiotic cream has high cure rate, few side effects in treating cutaneous leishmaniasis

2013-02-07

Fort Detrick, Md. – An international collaboration of researchers from the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC), Tunisia and France has demonstrated a high cure rate and remarkably few side effects in treating patients with cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) with an investigational antibiotic cream. CL is a parasitic disease that causes disfiguring lesions, with 350 million people at risk worldwide and 1.5 million new cases annually, including U.S. military personnel serving abroad and the socio-economically disadvantaged in the developing world, especially ...

Lungs of the planet reveal their true sensitivity to global warming

2013-02-07

Tropical rainforests are often called the "lungs of the planet" because they generally draw in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. But the amount of carbon dioxide that rainforests absorb, or produce, varies hugely with year-to-year variations in the climate. In a paper published online this week (Feb 6 2013) by the journal Nature, a team of climate scientists from the University of Exeter, the Met Office-Hadley Centre and the NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, has shown that these variations reveal how vulnerable the rainforest is to climate change. Lead author ...

Research shows 'listening to your heart' could improve body image

2013-02-07

Researchers from the Department of Psychology at Royal Holloway university asked healthy female student volunteers aged between 19 – 26, to concentrate hard and count their own heartbeats, simply by "listening" to their bodies. Their accuracy in this heartbeat perception test was compared with their perception of their bodies as objects, measured by scores on the Self-Objectification Questionnaire. According to the results, the more accurate the women were in detecting their heartbeats, the less they tended to think of their bodies as objects. These findings have important ...

Drop in alcohol-related deaths by nearly a third follows minimum alcohol price increase of 10 percent

2013-02-07

A new study made available online today in 'Addiction' shows that, between 2002 and 2009, the percentage of deaths caused by alcohol in British Columbia, Canada dropped more than expected when minimum alcohol price was increased, while alcohol-related deaths increased when more private alcohol stores were opened. The paper has significant implications for international alcohol policy. The study was carried out by researchers from British Columbia, the westernmost province in Canada, using three categories of death associated with alcohol – wholly alcohol attributable ...

Biodiversity helps protect nature against human impacts: Study

2013-02-07

"You don't know what you've got 'til it's collapsed." That's how University of Guelph integrative biologists might recast a line from an iconic folk tune for their new research paper warning about the perils of ecosystem breakdown. Their research, published today as the cover story in Nature, suggests farmers and resource managers should not rely on seemingly stable but vulnerable single-crop monocultures. Instead they should encourage more kinds of plants in fields and woods as a buffer against sudden ecosystem disturbance. Based on a 10-year study, their paper also ...

Genetic variation doubles risk of aortic valve calcification

2013-02-07

Researchers have found a genetic variant that doubles the likelihood that people will have calcium deposits on their aortic valve. Such calcification, if it becomes severe, can cause narrowing or a blockage of the aortic valve, a condition called aortic stenosis. The study is the first large-scale, genome-wide association study to uncover a genetic link to aortic valve calcification. An article detailing the findings is published in the February 7, 2013 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The study's lead investigators — from Johns Hopkins, Harvard University, ...

Scientists discover how chromosomes keep their loose ends loose

2013-02-07

LA JOLLA, CA – February 6, 2013 – We take it for granted that our chromosomes won't stick together, yet this kind of cellular disaster would happen constantly were it not for a protein called TRF2. Now, scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have discovered key details of how TRF2 performs this crucial chromosome-protecting function. The finding represents a significant advance in cell biology and also has implications for our understanding of cancer and the aging process. "Cells tend to interpret their chromosome ends as sites of DNA damage, and without ...

Most common form of heart valve disease linked to unusual cholesterol

2013-02-07

Montreal, February 7th, 2013 – Researchers have discovered a gene associated with a form of cholesterol that increases the risk of developing aortic stenosis, the most common form of heart valve disease, by more than half. This international study, involving the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC), is the first of its kind to uncover a genetic link with aortic valve disease – a condition that affects more than 5 million people in North America. The results of the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, point to the first ...

Older bikers 3 times as likely to be seriously injured in crashes as younger peers

2013-02-07

Older bikers are up to three times as likely to be seriously injured in a crash as younger motor bike enthusiasts, indicates US research published online in Injury Prevention. The findings are a cause for concern, because of the increasing popularity of motor bike ownership among older adults, and their increasing tendency to be involved in a crash, warn the authors. In the US, the percentage of bikers over the age of 50 has more than doubled from just over 1 in 10 in 1990 to 1 in 4 in 2003, while the average age of those involved in a motorbike crash has been steadily ...