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Related Experiment Video

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Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Published on: November 30, 2018

Are Emoji Processed Like Words? An Eye-Tracking Study.

Patrizia Paggio^1,2, Alice Ping Ping Tse¹

¹Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics, Centre for Language Technology, University of Copenhagen.

Cognitive Science

|February 5, 2022

Summary

Emoji processing in sentences is more challenging when they replace words or are ambiguous, impacting reading speed and comprehension. This eye-tracking study reveals emoji integration can be less immediate than words.

Keywords:

Ambiguity Emoji processing Eye tracking Lexical access

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Last Updated: Oct 4, 2025

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Published on: November 30, 2018

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Using Eye Movements to Evaluate the Cognitive Processes Involved in Text Comprehension

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Published on: January 10, 2014

Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Linguistics
Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

Emoji are increasingly used in digital communication.
Their cognitive processing, especially in sentence contexts, is not fully understood.
Previous research often focuses on emoji meaning in isolation, not sentence integration.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the cognitive processing of object-denoting emoji in sentences using eye-tracking.
To test hypotheses regarding emoji processing difficulty as word replacements and susceptibility to ambiguity.
To compare emoji processing with word processing within sentence structures.

Main Methods:

Two eye-tracking experiments were conducted with participants reading sentences containing emoji.
Emoji were used as word replacements or followed words, with and without disambiguating contexts.
Control sentences without emoji were included.
Eye-tracking metrics (first fixation duration, total visit duration, revisit duration) were analyzed using linear mixed models.

Main Results:

Processing difficulty was observed for non-redundant emoji (longer total visit time).
Ambiguous emoji led to increased processing times across all measured metrics.
Emoji used as word replacements showed greater processing load compared to redundant emoji or words.

Conclusions:

Emoji processing, particularly as word replacements, can be more demanding than word processing.
Ambiguity significantly hinders emoji integration into sentence comprehension.
Despite their popularity, emoji processing is not always immediate and can present cognitive challenges for readers.