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Current models of fluent reading often assume that fast and automatic word recognition involves the use of a supraletter feature corresponding to the envelope or shape of the word when it is printed in lowercase. The advantages of mixed case over pure case and of pure lowercase over pure uppercase have often been taken as evidence favoring the word-shape hypothesis. Alternative explanations for these phenomena are offered. Experiment 1 shows that previous demonstrations of word-shape effects during proofreading are better described as individual letter effects. Experiments 2-4 explore the possibility that word shape facilitates lexical access through uncertainty reduction. In all three experiments performance on words with rare shapes is compared to those with common shapes. There were no effects of shape frequency in either tachistoscopic recognition or lexical-decision tasks. This was true regardless of the degree to which the visual shape cue was supplemented by the nonvisual factors of familiarity and expectancy. Possible reasons why fluent readers ignore word shape are discussed within the framework of a model that assumes that automatic word recognition is mediated by the activation of abstract letter identities.

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Categorical menu layouts are currently designed according to conventions and opinions, rather than by employing formal techniques. In this paper we describe a formal methodology for categorically organizing menus. We go on to show how color-coding can be applied to these layouts either to emphasize organization or to provide additional information. The results of a controlled study comparing layouts based on frequency of co-occurrence and similarity show that the formal menu-layout methodology is effective. However, the use of color-coding to identify categories is not supported. Potential reasons for this failure are discussed.

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