How much do we understand when skim reading?

The World Wide Web and other technological advances have meant rapid reading or "skimming" of text is increasingly common in our information-rich timelimited society. This study investigates the effectiveness of skimming as a strategy for understanding a text. A replication and extension of Masson's (1982) work found that recognition of important, unimportant and inferable information declined equally when readers were required to skim rather than read text normally. This indicates that readers struggle to focus on important information when skimming. Moreover, a response bias suggests skimmers are more likely to over-interpret complicated information as consistent with the text. Thus, designers including large amounts of text should be aware that skimming is a limited strategy for achieving understanding.