Incidental collocational learning from reading-while-listening and the impact of synchronized textual enhancement

Abstract The present study explored if textual enhancement would promote incidental learning of collocations from reading-while-listening, and if synchronizing the timing of textual enhancement to the audio could affect the efficacy of textual enhancement. Fifty-six Korean speakers engaged in reading-while-listening of two English stories under one of three conditions: no enhancement, target collocations coloured in red, and target collocations dynamically turning to red in synchronization with the audio. The target collocations were 12 adjective-pseudonoun pairs, and participants’ learning was measured with a series of recall and recognition tests on pseudonoun form, meaning, and collocations, recording both response accuracy and latency. The results from mixed-effects modeling revealed that both colouring conditions promoted receptive knowledge about the target collocations, and synchronized colouring further boosted semantic processing of the pseudonouns. The findings indicate that synchronization between textual and audio input could be a useful catalyst to encourage deeper engagement with the enhanced features.