Exploring the influence of temporal discontinuities in narrative text using eye tracking

• Results indicate longer reading times for narratives with longer time boundaries.
• Stories with longer time boundaries have a larger number of fixations.
• Ease of processing a temporal adverbial phrase depends on the boundary length.
• Re-reading time of the text preceding time boundaries depends on boundary length.

One prominent question in the field of language comprehension concerns the dynamics of constructing and updating mental models while reading narratives, especially with respect to dealing with sudden event boundaries that often occur after encountering temporal changes. The present study investigated the influence of introducing temporal discontinuities of different length within short stories using eye tracking. It compared participants' reading times and several eye-movement parameters associated with reading narratives in which either a short or long time shift was presented. The obtained results indicated longer reading times for stories containing a long time shift, which were also characterized by a larger number of fixations. Processing the encountered temporal discontinuities and the text presented prior to the temporal adverbial phrase was more demanding than processing the remaining part of the text. Furthermore, this effect was more pronounced for stories containing a long time shift than those incorporating a short time shift.