Analysis of the cognitive load and emotional engagement of young people when reading environmental media texts: the experience of using EEG and eye tracking technologies

The article analyses the cognitive load and emotional involvement of young people (aged 22–25 years old) when reading environmental media texts in the mass and social media of indus-trial regions based on electroencephalographic research and eye-tracking technologies. The study was based on a sample of environmental media texts (122 units) selected from the mass and so-cial media of the cities of the Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk regions. The EEG study demonstrated that the highest degree of involvement was shown by media texts covering environmental issues. The highest degree of arousal was noted when presenting a media text covering negative envi-ronmental topics related to forest fires and adverse weather conditions. Eye-tracking technologies based on video recording allowed recording the eye movements of the audience while reading media texts and generating the heat maps that provide graphical data representation and identify verbal and non-verbal elements. The results of the analysis showed that the respondents were dominated by verbal elements related to wildlife protection, air and water pollution, as well as garbage problems. Images of landscape greening and animal world attracted maximum attention among the non-verbal elements of media texts.