The relationship of style difficulty, practice, and ability to efficiency of reading and to retention

Abstract

Two groups of Ss, one of high and one of low mechanical ability, read a technical passage before an eye-movement camera. An "easy" style and a "hard" style passage were used, and Ss read the passage once or three times. Reading efficiency measures collected were words read per second and per fixation; retention measures were scores on modified recall and word recognition tests. The high ability group scored better on all measures than the low ability group; three readings yielded superior scores on the retention measures; and the "easy" style gave higher scores on the reading efficiency and modified recall measures. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)