Considerable research has focused on understanding the mechanisms underlying reading for comprehension while relatively few studies have focused on how we seek and comprehend relevant information within text. Understanding the mechanisms that underlie search for specific information is especially important now that so much textual information is available, such that locating relevant information is vital to the everyday reading process. Previous work showed significant effects of word frequency and word visual complexity on eye movements during reading for comprehension, compared to high frequency (low complexity) word, participants made longer fixation duration on and were less likely to skip low frequency (high complexity) word, however very few studies have explored the role of word frequency and word visual complexity during target word search, especially in Chinese language. The present study used eye-tracking method to investigate the effects of word frequency and word visual complexity on eye movements during target word search in Chinese.

The design of the experiment was 2 × 2 (word visual complexity [high, low] × word frequency [high, low]), within participants and items. In total there were 15 practice sentences, 44 experimental sentences, and 36 filler sentences. Filler items always included the search target word. The four conditions were manipulated within participants and items following a Latin square design. The order of the experimental and filler items was randomized for each participant. An SR Research Eyelink 1000 eye tracker was used to record eye movements with a sampling rate of 1000 Hz. Fifty-six participants were required to search the sentences while their eye movements were recorded.

In Experiment 1, participants were required to search one target word and judge whether the target word was present or absent. The results showed that there were no significant effects of word frequency on fixation duration and skipping rate. There were significant effects of visual complexity on skipping rate and fixation duration. Participants made longer fixation duration on complex words and were less likely to skip the complex words during search reading.

In Experiment 2, participants were required to search two target words and judge whether the target words were present or absent. The results showed there were no significant effects of word frequency on fixation duration and skipping rate. However, there were significant effects of visual complexity on skipping rate and fixation duration. Participants made longer fixation duration on complex words and were less likely to skip the complex words during search reading.

Taken together, the study found that word visual complexity affected search reading, whereas word frequency did not affect search reading. These findings indicate that eye movement behaviors during target word search in Chinese are largely driven by superficial processing of the text. Target word search in Chinese may be achieved by visual form match strategy.