A Study on Elementary Students' Perception of Informativeness of Visual Mode in the Picture Book Reading Process

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the patterns of informativeness recognition in visual mode during the process of picture book reading and critically examine the existing notion that picture books are ‘easily understandable texts’. Methods: Four sixth-grade elementary school students, selected through convenience sampling, were subjected to an eye-tracking experiment and an information recall test. The experimental text was Lee Su-ji's Zoo. An eye-tracking device measured fixation duration, frequency, and regression frequency in both text and illustration areas. The collected data, utilizing a questionnaire and retelling method, was used to analyze each participant's cognitive and interpretive patterns. Results: Study participants failed to perceive or remember key visual cues while reading picture books. This suggests that they failed to focus their attention and recognize visual patterns with important informational value. The visual mode of picture books was confirmed to not be merely passive or automatically perceived, but rather a complex symbolic system requiring readers to actively focus their attention and interpret what they were observing. Readers had to link them to reconstruct an implicit narrative in order to grasp meaning. Consequently, while some participants recognized inconsistencies between text and images, the majority demonstrated insufficient integrated meaning construction. Conclusion: The existing perspective of viewing picture books as ‘easy texts’ needs to be re-examined. Future research should expand to systematically analyze the cognitive process of perceiving the informative nature of visual formats to develop systematic picture book teaching strategies.