Predicting Text Readability from Scrolling Interactions

TL;DR

This study explores how scrolling behavior correlates with text readability, demonstrating that interaction patterns vary with text difficulty and can predict readability, influenced by reader background, based on data from 518 participants.

Contribution

The paper introduces a large-scale dataset linking scrolling interactions to text readability and shows these behaviors can predict text difficulty, considering reader background effects.

Findings

Scrolling behavior differs significantly across text levels.

Interaction measures can predict text readability.

Reader background influences reading interactions and perceived difficulty.

Abstract

Judging the readability of text has many important applications, for instance when performing text simplification or when sourcing reading material for language learners. In this paper, we present a 518 participant study which investigates how scrolling behaviour relates to the readability of a text. We make our dataset publicly available and show that (1) there are statistically significant differences in the way readers interact with text depending on the text level, (2) such measures can be used to predict the readability of text, and (3) the background of a reader impacts their reading interactions and the factors contributing to text difficulty.