Functional Brain Imaging for Analysis of Reading Effort for Computer-Generated Text

This paper discusses two functional brain imaging techniques, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and functional near-infrared (fNIR) imaging, and their applications for quantitative usability analysis. This application is demonstrated through a two-phase study on reading effort required for varying degrees of font degradation. The first phase used fMRI to map cortical locations that were active while subjects read fonts of varying quality. The second phase used fNIR imaging, which showed higher levels of activity (and thus greater cognitive effort) in the visual processing area of the brain during a reading task with text presented in degraded fonts. The readability analysis techniques demonstrated in this study also generalize to applications requiring an objective analysis of interface usability.