Guiding the Gaze: How Bionic Reading Influences Eye Movements

In recent years, Bionic reading has been introduced as a means to combat superficial reading and low comprehension rates. This paper investigates eye movements between participants who read a passage in standard font and an additional Bionic font passage. It was found that Bionic font does not significantly change eye movements when reading. Fixation durations, number of fixations and reading speeds were not significantly different between the two formats. Furthermore, fixations were spread throughout the word and not only on leading characters, even when using Bionic font; hence, participants were not able to "auto-complete" the words. Additionally, Bionic font did not facilitate easier processing of low-frequency or unfamiliar words. Overall, it would appear that Bionic font, in the short term, does not affect reading. Further investigation is needed to determine whether a long-term intervention with Bionic font is more meaningful than standard interventions.