Ben Sawyer, an assistant professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering & Management Systems, is leading the research at UCF./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201cIn early studies we have been able to accelerate some adults/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019 reading by more than 25 percent,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201d says Ben Sawyer, an assistant professor in UCF/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019s Department of Industrial Engineering & Management Systems leading the research at UCF./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201cIf your job requires you to read multiple hours a day, this is a huge potential workload reduction,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201d he says./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
Reading is important for job success and civic engagement as poor reading skills are associated with unemployment, lower wages and voter apathy, according to studies from the National Center for Education Statistics./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
With the advent of the pandemic, people are reading more electronic books, and remote learning has meant an increase in instruction and assignments through digital documents with fixed text./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
But large screens, such as on personal computers, are not always readily available for people reading documents remotely, says Rick Treitman, entrepreneur in residence at Adobe, and Zoya Bylinskii, a research scientist at Adobe. Treitman and Bylinskii are facilitating the research./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
Instead, people may have to use a tablet or smartphone if they don/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019t have their own computer or if they have to share a single computer with other family members./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201cWe are seeing that a lot of remote learning is happening on phones because someone else in the household may be using the only computer,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201d Treitman says. /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201cIt’s yet another device, and so if we can make the PDF experience on the phone better, then one student could do their reading on the phone, while another uses the laptop./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
Furthermore, when text is fixed into a certain style and layout in a document, it can cause problems as everyone sees text differently, so one text format doesn/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019t fit all, Treitman says./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
For instance, one person may see normally spaced text as all scrunched together, thus hindering their reading. However, with digital text, this is a problem that can be easily addressed if readers can create their personal reading formats, as they can in Adobe Reader/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019s Liquid Mode./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
For instance, even on older digital documents that may be already set in a small font size with tight spacing, a reader using the technology could adjust the text to suit their needs./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
This takes control of the text display from the designer and gives it to the user, Treitman says./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201cWe’re flipping the script,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201d he says. /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201cAnd that/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019s why we/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019ve turned to UCF and others to start this research. Text has always been designed by the author or by the publisher, and now we’re letting the reader design it. That’s a whole new paradigm./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
Sawyer/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019s team is currently collecting readability data from a large number of readers through the lab/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019s research website, Readabilitylab.xyz./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
Sawyer says they hope to soon bring some of their participants into the lab for electrophysiological monitoring to record the electrical activity of the brain while a person reads; track people/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019s eye movements as they read digital text; and measure people/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019s reading speed and comprehension of different passages of digital text./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201cCOVID-19 is a challenge to in-person research, so we are testing 3D-printed eye-and-brain activity trackers and webcam reading tracking, all in an attempt to collect lab-quality data from people in their homes,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201d Sawyer says./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
Current study participants are adult readers, but the researchers plan to expand their work to include younger and older readers, as well as non-English readers./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201cOur initial research has told us that there’s not a one-size-fits-all solution,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201d he says. /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201cLike a pair of prescription eyeglasses, we want to provide a reading experience personalized to an individual./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
Some of the lab/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019s findings have already been incorporated into existing Adobe software./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
Sawyer/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019s collaborators include Benjamin Wolfe, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, and Jonathan Dobres, a consulting psychophysics scientist with a doctorate in cognitive sciences. Esat Boucaud and Sarah Minion, laboratory assistants in Sawyer/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019s Virtual Readability Lab, are also supporting the initiative. Boucaud is a sophomore majoring in computational physics, and Minion is a junior majoring in electrical engineering, both at UCF./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/nSawyer says not only will the research efforts help workers and students read digital documents better, it will also help reduce information overload./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201cNothing about the modern world is trending toward delivering us less information,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201d he says. /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201cThese technologies can provide some relief from that and can give people help with reading./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n
Sawyer received his doctorate in human factors psychology and master/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019s in industrial engineering from UCF and completed his postdoctoral studies at MIT. He joined UCF/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019s Department of Industrial Engineering & Management Systems, part of UCF/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019s College of Engineering and Computer Science, in 2018. He is also director of LabX, an applied neuroscience group addressing human performance, and a joint faculty member of UCF/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019s Institute for Simulation and Training, School of Modeling Simulation and Training./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Early studies have shown researchers can accelerate some adults/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/u2019 reading by more than 25 percent by personalizing the digital-reading experience./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[5,23,24],"tags":[54275,973,13268,2305],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-114806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colleges","category-research","category-science-technology","tag-ben-sawyer","tag-college-of-engineering-and-computer-science","tag-department-of-industrial-engineering-and-management-systems","tag-institute-for-simulation-and-training"],"yoast_head":"/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/nUCF Partners with Adobe to Personalize Reading Experiences for Students, Adults | 海角直播 News/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/t /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/t /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/t /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/t /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/t /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/t /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/114806/n