Psycholinguistics Meetings 2024

Demian Stoyanov - "Effects of Positive Emoji Face in Sentence Reading: Evidence from Eye Movements"

In digital communication, emojis add a semantic layer and emotional tone to messages, yet their specific influence on reading processes is less well understood. This study examined how positive and neutral face emojis embedded in sentences influence the reading of adjacent words.

A preliminary survey selected 64 neutral-tone sentences, modified with either a positive or neutral emoji mid-sentence, from an initial pool of 100 text-message-like sentences. Fifty native English-speaking university students participated in an eye-tracking experiment, where they read these sentences and rated their sentiment. Eye-tracking metrics analyzed included early-stage measures (single fixations, gaze duration, first fixation duration) and late-stage measures (total reading time, regressions, trial dwell time) for words before and after the emoji. The results indicated that positive emojis led to more efficient processing of both following (n+1) and preceding (n-1) words, primarily affecting late-stage reading metrics.

This suggested a broader influence of emojis on reading dynamics and sentence sentiment perception, highlighting the significant impact of emojis on digital communication by enhancing word recognition and overall sentence interpretation.