Features for Identification of Uppercase and Lowercase Letters

Fiset, Daniel; Blais, Caroline; Éthier-Majcher, Catherine; Arguin, Martin; Bub, Daniel N.; Gosselin, Frédéric

doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2008.02218.x

Cited by 101 publications

(131 citation statements)

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“…Given that the delayed-segment technique is sensitive to the effects for pseudowords (i.e., the baseline condition leads to shorter response times than do the two segment-delayed conditions), the most parsimonious explanation of the present data is that the advantage for the upper part of words does not occur at the letter or letter feature level but, rather, at a lexical level. Furthermore, this finding is consistent with previous evidence, which failed to find an advantage for the upper part of isolated letters Fiset et al, 2008). Thus, these findings suggest that there is no need to assign more weight to the upper part of letters in the front end of the models of visual word recognition.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

“…Alternatively, if the advantage for the upper part of letter strings occurs for words but not for pseudowords, the effect would not occur at a letter (or letter feature) level but, rather, at the lexical level. At the theoretical level, this outcome would suggest that both the lower and the upper portions of letters are equally important in activating letter representations, as predicted by the front end of current models of visual word recognition (or the data with isolated letters from Fiset et al, 2008). We should note here that the experiments of Blais et al and Perea et al (2012) were not designed to examine the effects with pseudowords.…”

mentioning

confidence: 88%

“…The rationale of the present series of experiments is the following: If the advantage for the upper part of words has its locus at the letter (or letter feature) level (e.g., on the basis of the peculiarities of the Roman alphabet), one would expect this advantage to appear not only for the upper part of words, but also for the upper part of letters or the upper part of pseudowords. However, using the bubbles technique (i.e., the same technique employed by Blais et al, 2009), Fiset et al (2008 failed to find any bias for the upper part of lowercase or uppercase letters. Similarly, Fiset et al (2008) showed that even across time, there is no bias for the upper part of single letters.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, using the bubbles technique (i.e., the same technique employed by Blais et al, 2009), Fiset et al (2008 failed to find any bias for the upper part of lowercase or uppercase letters. Similarly, Fiset et al (2008) showed that even across time, there is no bias for the upper part of single letters. Blais et al concluded that "intriguingly, this bias for the upper portion of the letters appears to be restricted to the case where letters are presented within the context of words" and "letter representations may be slightly different for isolated letters and for letters in words" (p. 6).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Does the advantage of the upper part of words occur at the lexical level?

2012

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Several recent studies have shown that the upper part of words is more important than the lower part in visual word recognition. Here, we examine whether or not this advantage arises at the lexical or at the letter (letter feature) level. To examine this issue, we conducted two lexical decision experiments in which words/pseudowords were preceded by a very brief (50-ms) presentation of their upper or lower parts (e.g.,). If the advantage for the upper part of words arises at the letter (letter feature) level, the effect should occur for both words and pseudowords. Results revealed an advantage for the upper part of words, but not for pseudowords. This suggests that the advantage for the upper part of words occurs at the lexical level, rather than at the letter (or letter feature) level.Keywords Visual word identification . Lexical decision . Computational modelsThe front end of any computational model of visual word recognition has to specify in detail not only the word level, but also the letter and letter feature levels. For the sake of parsimony, current implementations of these models assume that each letter feature is equally important in activating letter representations-usually employing the simplified uppercase font designed by Rumelhart and Siple (1974; see, e.g.,

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 82%

mentioning

confidence: 88%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Does the advantage of the upper part of words occur at the lexical level?

2012

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“…If distinctiveness is indeed critical, increasing it through alphabet design should increase legibility. This logic has been recently advocated (e.g., Fiset et al, 2008;Gosselin & Tjan, 2008).1 However, if letter distinctiveness is an incomplete basis for understanding letter processing during reading, calls to redesign letters are premature.A richer view of letter processing incorporates structural relations between letters and originates in the field of type design. Type designers have long been concerned with letter form and its impact on reading.…”

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confidence: 99%

Letter processing and font information during reading: Beyond distinctiveness, where vision meets design

Sanocki

Dyson

2011

Atten Percept Psychophys

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Letter identification is a critical front end of the reading process. In general, conceptualizations of the identification process have emphasized arbitrary sets of distinctive features. However, a richer view of letter processing incorporates principles from the field of type design, including an emphasis on uniformities across letters within a font. The importance of uniformities is supported by a small body of research indicating that consistency of font increases letter identification efficiency. We review design concepts and the relevant literature, with the goal of stimulating further thinking about letter processing during reading.Keywords Letter identification . Letter perception . Font . Font tuning . Common features . Type design . Reading Motivated by the increasing realization that letter perception is an important but overlooked stage in the reading process (e.g., Finkbeiner & Coltheart, 2009;Grainger, 2008;Massaro & Schmuller, 1975;Pelli, Burns, Farell, & Moore-Page, 2006), there has been a resurgence of interest in letter perception in relation to reading. It is now clear that letter perception provides a critical front end for reading because letters are functional units; they are independent pieces of the word code (e.g., McClelland, 1976;Oden, 1984;Pelli, Farell, & Moore, 2003). The visual forms of letters exist within a larger structural design, a family of objects known as the type font. This idea has implications for perceptual identification that we begin to develop here.In previous research and theory, a core concept is distinctiveness-the properties that make one letter easy to discriminate from its alternatives in the alphabet. This has led to the central concept of feature detection in the literature (e.g., Fiset et al., 2008;Gibson, 1969;Massaro & Schmuller, 1975). Letters are defined by sets of features whose membership is determined by distinctiveness. If distinctiveness is indeed critical, increasing it through alphabet design should increase legibility. This logic has been recently advocated (e.g., Fiset et al., 2008;Gosselin & Tjan, 2008).1 However, if letter distinctiveness is an incomplete basis for understanding letter processing during reading, calls to redesign letters are premature.A richer view of letter processing incorporates structural relations between letters and originates in the field of type design. Type designers have long been concerned with letter form and its impact on reading. Text fonts are designed for reading continuous paragraphs of text, and the main goal in their design is to produce optimally legible letter forms. Type designers recognize the importance of distinctiveness, but they also emphasize the uniformity of letters (e.g., Carter, Day, & Meggs, 1985;Cheng, 2005). The classical goal of 1 The idea of improving legibility through research and design is not new. Modifications to increase distinctiveness have been explored by Kolers (1969), Crist (1980), and, more recently, Beier andLarson (2010). A modification that was actually used (mainly...

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Early Literacy Research

Reutzel¹

2015

Read Teach

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Features for Identification of Uppercase and Lowercase Letters

Cited by 101 publications

References 40 publications

Does the advantage of the upper part of words occur at the lexical level?

Does the advantage of the upper part of words occur at the lexical level?

Letter processing and font information during reading: Beyond distinctiveness, where vision meets design

Early Literacy Research

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