The ROBERT GUNNING EDITOR features a new tool called Cognitive Reading Load: it lets you see how your text, sentences, and words impact your readers as they process your information.
To see cognitive load on your text, click the Cognitive Reading Load button. The screen will refresh with your text highlighted in various colors. Three buttons let you see cognitive load from different perspectives:
- Cognitive Sentence Load: see which sentences demand the least and most mental effort to read and understand.
- Cognitive Text Load: see how much mental effort is needed to read your text in the first reading.
- Cognitive Words Load: see which words demand the least and most mental effort to decode and understand.
Each button shows different color hotspots where readers might struggle—these areas suggest you simplify or restructure the text.
On the right side of the screen, you’ll see two gradient-colored graphs:
Working Memory: this reveals the mental effort readers needs to process your text, sentences, or words.
Reading/Grade Levels: this reveals the reading skill and minimum grade-level education needed to process your text, sentences, or words
Match the gradient-colors of your text to one or both graphs to see the results.
Bright Red Zones: These colors mean high cognitive load, marking sections that might overwhelm readers. Such areas could contain long, complex sentences, jargon-heavy phrases, or challenging vocabulary. Bright red highlights show where readers might pause, reread, or even disengage.
Orange or Yellow Zones: These colors suggest moderate cognitive load—sections accessible but still need extra attention from readers. These might include sentences with multiple clauses or slightly technical language. Orange or yellow suggests the reader can follow, but with a bit of extra effort.
Green Zones: These zones show areas with low cognitive load. Here, the language is straightforward, familiar, and easy to understand, enabling readers to quickly grasp ideas. Green highlights mark the smoothest parts of the text where reading flows naturally.
A Note on Averages: The average reading level of public readers in the U.S. is 8th grade. The mental effort to read an 8th grade text starts at 50% cognitive load. This means 8th grade readers need to exert 0% additional cognitive effort. Now let’s say your readers read at an 8th grade level but your text reads at an 11th grade level. Cognitive load now registers at 70%. Because 50% is the average (or baseline), your readers will need to exert 20% (70%-50%) more mental effort to process your text.
Example of using Cognitive Reading Load
At the start of the new school year, Miranda Falls Public School System was forced to revise its anti-bullying policy. Feedback from parents and students revealed the policy was too hard to read for students in 10-12th grades. Parents voiced their concern that it was unethical to force students to consent to a policy they could not fully understand. Professor Emily Wilkins, an English teacher, was tasked with revising the policy.
Using the Robert Gunning Editor, Emily loaded the policy into the editor and clicked on Cognitive Reading Load. Next, she clicked Cognitive Text Load to assess the results. This is what she saw:
Emily reviewed the areas of text highlighted in dark orange and red. The policy started off complex and gradually eased to difficult/slightly difficult. Overall, readers needed a 12th grade/college reading level to read and understand the policy. They also needed to exert 30-40% extra mental effort to understand everything.
Emily’s goal was to rewrite the policy at an 8th-9th grade reading level so all students in 10-12th grades could easily digest the information.
To find out what was causing complexity in the text, she clicked on Cognitive Sentence Load. This is what she saw:
The sentences in red added complexity, wordiness and extra cognitive load. She could see which sentences she needed to edit and restructure.
Next she clicked on Cognitive Words Load to see which words added complexity, wordiness and cognitive load. Her screen showed:
She paid close attention to words highlighted or underscored in red because these were possibly the most difficult words.
After reviewing the results from the Cognitive Reading Load tool, she edited the hotspots of red until she achieve a cohesive yellow/slight orange Cognitive Text Load—the color that equated to an 8.5 reading grade level and 55-60% mental load effort, which meant students would only need to exert 5-10% extra mental effort.
She also fine-tuned how the editor scored certain categories of words.
Since the policy was for readers in 10-12th grades, she knew they’d already know hard Sight Words. She also clicked Inflected Words because she knew they’d also know any “hard” inflected words, such as “bully” => “bullying”; “threaten” => “threatening”; “counsel” => “counseling”; etc. Such “hard words made easy” were now underscored with light green dots and colored light blue (representing easy words).
After multiple drafts of editing, Emily finally achieved her goal of matching the policy’s readability level and cognitive load with the graphs.
The policy was now a cohesive green/light yellow, matching an 8th-9th grade reading level and average cognitive load. The results suggest students can now read the policy with little mental effort.
To confirm the policy’s reading level, Emily scored it with the Readability Scoring System.
The final result scored between a 8.5 and 9th grade reading level—the perfect score for the policy’s readers.
Further reading:
1. Improve Your Writing Style with Cognitive Load Theory
2. How to Measure Cognitive Reading Load to Improve Readability of Any Text