The Sensor Hub for Detecting the Developmental Characteristics in Reading in Children on a White vs. Coloured Background/Coloured Overlays

Abstract

The study investigated the influence of white vs 12 background and overlay colours on the reading process in school age children. Previous research reported that colours could affect reading skills as an important factor of the emotional and physiological state of the body. The aim of the study was to assess developmental differences between second and third grade students of elementary school and to evaluate differences in electroencephalography (EEG), ocular, electrodermal activities (EDA) and heart rate variability (HRV). Our findings showed a decreasing trend with age regarding EEG power bands (Alpha, Beta, Delta, Theta) and lower scores of reading duration and eye-tracking measures in younger children compared to older children. As shown in the results, HRV parameters showed higher scores in 12 background and overlay colours among second than third grade students which is linearly correlated to the level of stress and readable from EDA measures as well. The existing study showed the calming effect on second graders in turquoise and blue background colours. Considering other colours separately for each parameter, we assumed that there are no systematic differences in Reading duration, EEG power band, Eye-tracking and EDA measures.

The Relation between Physiological Parameters and Colour Modifications in Text Background and Overlay during Reading in Children with and without Dyslexia

“…After the referent slide, which would always appear at the beginning of the presentation, the following slides were presented in a pseudo-randomized order of background/overlay colours. Background colours were always presented with black text and overlays according to colour calculation in the section Experiment Design of the previous study [ 21 ] (marked by O in further text, e.g., blue O stands for blue overlay). The story was divided into 13 paragraphs/slides, so the text on each slide was kept in the original order but in different colours (in order to avoid the effect of factors such as semantic or affective content, vocabulary, text complicity, or syntax).…”

“…Experimental design was exactly the same as in the [ 21 ] except for the difference laid out in the description of Figure 1 and Data Processing part.…”

“…Given that colours can affect the state of our body and emotions [ 21 , 22 ], this study investigates the relationship between physiological parameters and colour modifications in the text and background during reading in children with and without dyslexia. It is evident that colours have been used in modulating reading performance in children with dyslexia in order to improve their skills and for other purposes such as increasing reading fluency and speed [ 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 ].…”

“…Reading involves sensory integration, attention, and memory processes which are reflected in the psycho-physiological states of the individual and measurable by different biosignals. Our previous work introduced a sensorhub for measurement of four biosignal modalities and describes the contributions of each modality to understanding of different aspects of neural, physiological, and behavioral processes in children during reading [ 21 ].…”

The effect of colour on reading performance in children, measured by a sensor hub: From the perspective of gender

“…The experiment design was exactly the same as in [40]. Fig 1 shows the sensor hub which consists of a portable multimodal ECG/EEG/EDA and eye tracking system for physiological data acquisition during the reading task.…”