Motion Event Segmentation in Visual Narratives

Motion lines are the drawn lines trailing behind an object to show movement. Prior work has shown that motion lines aid comprehension by clarifying the direction of motion, but no experimental research has examined how they interact with path segmentation, like a visual sequence in comics. In Experiment 1, participants understood panels with motion lines better than without lines. With motion lines, omitting the path’s source was harder to comprehend than showing the source but having it disappear. Moreover, less experienced comic readers benefited more from showing a whole path with lines in single panels than fluent ones. In Experiment 2, reversed-direction lines were harder to process than normal or omitted lines, but segmentation did not matter. Overall, motion event comprehension can be modulated by path segmentation of lines and comics reading experience.