Reading with emojis
For centuries, non-verbal signals typical of face-to-face contact, such as gestures or facial expressions, were unavailable in writing. Today, in widespread digital communication, emojis (like ????) help bridge this gap, yet little is known about how they change the way we read. This thesis asked how long it takes for emojis to affect reading, whether these effects depend on emojis’ sentiment and face-likeness, and what happens to these effects when readers have little or no awareness of the emoji. In a series of experiments, we analysed behaviour, eye movements and brain activity during word and sentence reading. We found that readers integrate emoji information rapidly and, to some extent, automatically. Face emojis attract more attention than non-faces, which can sometimes draw resources away from nearby words. Positive emojis generally accelerates reading and decision-making: for example, a ???? before a word made that word easier to recognise, whereas a ???? did not. When emojis were hidden from awareness, this positive boost disappeared, and negative emojis began to slightly disrupt performance. Eye-movement data showed that readers often start processing an emoji’s emotional meaning even before looking directly at it, which can shape processing of the preceding word and the whole sentence. These results show that tiny icons can shift how we communicate, read, feel, and make decisions. The findings can inform clearer digital writing, better interface design, and accessibility tools that convey emoji content for people who rely on assistive technology.