Visual noise disrupts conceptual integration in reading

Gao, Xuefei; Stine‐Morrow, Elizabeth A. L.; Noh, Seung Man; Eskew, Rhea T.

doi:10.3758/s13423-010-0014-4

Cited by 34 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…As a consequence of this more superficial semantic analysis, the quality of their recall was reduced, resulting in the retention of relatively fewer central ideas. These results represent a substantive replication of previous findings of noise effect on offline memory performance (e.g., Dickinson & Rabbitt, 1991;Gao et al, 2011) and support the effortfulness hypothesis.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…In the current study, we used the same paradigm as Gao et al (2011) to examine whether internal and external noise have cumulative impact on reading among younger and older adults. Because the effortfulness hypothesis suggests that external and internal noise function similarly, it was hypothesized that ageing would exaggerate the adverse effect of environmental noise on word-level and textbase-level resource allocation as well as text recall.…”

Section: Current Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We computed composite scores for word-level and text-level processes using the standardized z scores of each parameter across noise conditions within each age group, which are more reliable than individual parameters (e.g., Gao et al, 2011;Stine-Morrow et al, 2004). These composites were obtained by averaging z scores of the coefficients for syllable and word frequency, and for new concepts and sentence boundary, respectively.…”

Section: Patterns Of Resource Allocationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Effects of Ageing and Visual Noise on Conceptual Integration during Sentence Reading

Gao

Levinthal

Stine‐Morrow

2012

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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The effortfulness hypothesis implies that difficulty in decoding the surface form, as in the case of age-related sensory limitations or background noise, consumes the attentional resources that are then unavailable for semantic integration in language comprehension. Because ageing is associated with sensory declines, degrading of the surface form by a noisy background can pose an extra challenge for older adults. In two experiments, this hypothesis was tested in a self-paced moving window paradigm in which younger and older readers’ online allocation of attentional resources to surface decoding and semantic integration was measured as they read sentences embedded in varying levels of visual noise. When visual noise was moderate (Experiment 1), resource allocation among young adults was unaffected but older adults allocated more resources to decode the surface form at the cost of resources that would otherwise be available for semantic processing; when visual noise was relatively intense (Experiment 2), both younger and older participants allocated more attention to the surface form and less attention to semantic processing. The decrease in attentional allocation to semantic integration resulted in reduced recall of core ideas in both experiments, suggesting that a less organized semantic representation was constructed in noise. The greater vulnerability of older adults at relatively low levels of noise is consistent with the effortfulness hypothesis.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Current Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Patterns Of Resource Allocationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Effects of Ageing and Visual Noise on Conceptual Integration during Sentence Reading

Gao

Levinthal

Stine‐Morrow

2012

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Self Cite

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“…One may thus conclude that additional time was needed to decipher disfluent text on a superficial level rather than to process the contents more deeply. This notion is supported by studies of Gao et al (2011) as well as of Gao et al (2012). In their studies, making text harder-to-read by adding visual noise increased reading times, but did not positively affect recall performance.…”

Section: Disfluency and Learning With Complex Materialssupporting

confidence: 67%

Effects of disfluency on cognitive and metacognitive processes and outcomes

Kühl

Eitel

2016

Metacognition Learning

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“…Mixed font may be like visual noise. When visual noise is present, readers can still read quickly, but at a cost of resources and comprehension at higher levels (e.g., Gao, Stine-Morrow, Noh, & Eskew, 2011). Measures of ease and enjoyment may be sensitive to visual noise and be more sensitive to font-mixing effects than are measures of letter identification efficiency.…”

Section: Font Typicality Type Design and Languagementioning

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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Visual noise disrupts conceptual integration in reading

Cited by 34 publications

References 25 publications

The Effects of Ageing and Visual Noise on Conceptual Integration during Sentence Reading

The Effects of Ageing and Visual Noise on Conceptual Integration during Sentence Reading

Effects of disfluency on cognitive and metacognitive processes and outcomes

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

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