Harmonization effects between a word's meaning and typography: An investigation using the visual world paradigm

We conducted an experiment using two Japanese typographies and sixteen words, having positive/negative emotional valence, to investigate the effects of harmonization between a word’s meaning and typography for harmonized and ill-harmonized conditions. Four different words two positive and two negative were simultaneously presented at the four corners of a display. Participants’ eye movements were recorded as they search a word on the display after hearing it. We analyzed the gaze duration in each region of the display (target/distractors). In the ill-harmonized condition the target was found earlier compared with the harmonized condition. However the words were finished reading at same time in both condition. The results imply that the target and distractors were processed automatically because of the increase in words’ perceptual fluency due to harmonization, thereby resulting in the delayed finding of the target.