Letter legibility and visual word recognition
Open accessAbstract
Word recognition performance varies systematically as a function of where the eyes fixate in the word. Performance is maximal with the eye slightly left of the center of the word and decreases drastically to both sides of this optimal viewing position. While manipulations of lexical factors have only marginal effects on this phenomenon, previous studies have pointed to a relation between the viewing position effect (VPE) and letter legibility: When letter legibility drops, the VPE becomes more exaggerated. To further investigate this phenomenon, we improved letter legibility by magnifying letter size in a way that was proportional to the distance from fixation (e.g., TABLE). Contrary to what would be expected if the VPE were due to limits of acuity, improving the legibility of letters has only a restricted influence on performance. In particular, for long words, a strong VPE remains even when letter legibility is equalized across eccentricities. The failure to neutralize the VPE is interpreted in terms of perceptual learning: Since normally, because of acuity limitations, the only information available in parafoveal vision concerns low-resolution features of letters; even when magnification provides better information, readers are unable to make use of it.
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The speed of word recognition is remarkably uninfluenced by the number of letters present in a 3-6-letter word, indicating a form of parallel processing of the letters.
“Chronometric studies show that the speed of word recognition is remarkably uninfluenced by the number of letters present in a 3-6-letter word, indicating a form of parallel processing of the letters [2].”
From The visual word form area: expertise for reading in the fusiform gyrus (2003) · cites this paper as [2]
The perceptual mechanisms that support word recognition rest on a critical process that groups the letters of a word together into an integrated perceptual unit (a 'visual word form').
“Several lines of cognitive evidence indicate that the perceptual mechanisms that support word recognition rest on a critical process that groups the letters of a word together into an integrated perceptual unit (i.e. a 'visual word form').”
From The visual word form area: expertise for reading in the fusiform gyrus (2003) · cites this paper as [2]
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The visual word form area: expertise for reading in the fusiform gyrus
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- Authors
- Nazir, T. A., Jacobs, A. M., & O’Regan, J. K.
- Affiliations
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (FR)
- Corresponding author
- Nazir, Tatjana A.
- Venue
- Memory & Cognition
- Published
- 1998-07
- Volume
- 26
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 810-821
- ISSN
- 0090-502X (ISSN-L)
- 1532-5946
- OpenAlex
- W2023856807
- Cited by
- 96
- References
- 41
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 3 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 3
- FWCI
- 10.30
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Memory & Cognition (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- HAL (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Keywords
- visual word recognition, letter legibility, parafoveal vision, perceptual learning, visual acuity, long words, reading
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Fixation, Ocular, Humans, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Printing, Reading, Visual Fields, Confidence Intervals
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