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posted by janrinok on Tuesday March 20 2018, @09:54PM   Printer-friendly
from the should-we-t-r-y-i-t-? dept.

Increased letter spacing helps individuals read faster, but not due to visual processing, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

"Generally speaking, our lab is interested in learning about how kids learn to read. More specifically, we want to know how the brain activity of kids that have difficulty learning to read differs from those who are not." said Elizabeth Sacchi, a doctoral candidate at Binghamton University. "Through some of my studies, I came across this effect called the letter-spacing effect, which is this finding that both kids and adults with or without specific reading impairment read faster and more fluidly when you increase the spaces between letters in words."

Sacchi's research on letter spacing is part of the National Science Foundation-funded Reading Brain Project, directed by Sarah Laszlo, adjunct associate professor of psychology. The Reading Brain Project studies how children read, measuring their brain activity as they play a computerized reading game. The goal of the project is to help children become more successful readers. According to Sacchi, this is the first letter-spacing research to look at what is happening inside the brain when reading occurs.

"Everybody seemed pretty certain up until this point that it was about decluttering your visual scene, which may make identifying letters easier," said Sacchi. "What my results show is that it doesn't look like the effect is happening early enough to be related to visual processing."

Sacchi measured the electrical activity in subjects' brains when they were shown pictures of words, letters that spell out pronounceable pseudo-words, strings of consonants, and a font that is visually similar to real words but has no meaning. She said if the letter-spacing effect was due to visual processing, it would be easier to respond to all of these characters.

"We saw very late effects of spacing, and we saw it the most with real words," said Sacchi. "Increased spacing was very helpful for the words, and less helpful for the pseudo-words and the consonant strings. The fact that more "word-like" stimuli benefited more than less "word-like" stimuli suggests that the benefit is occurring during a reading-specific process, rather than during a purely visual stage. We don't know exactly yet where it's coming into play, but if we can identify exactly where it is helping individuals during reading, then the idea is that we can employ it more effectively."

Sacchi said she plans to focus her future research on what part of the reading process letter-spacing affects.

Materials provided by Binghamton University.


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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by cocaine overdose on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:06PM (5 children)

    No thank you, Science. I run a custom user sheet with

    * {
        letter-spacing: -0.1em;
        word-spacing: -0.01em;
    }

    On all sites so I don't have to be drowned in claustrophobic bloat.
    • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:56PM (4 children)

      by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:56PM (#655691)

      People afraid of "claustrophobic bloat" is why we have so much damn whitespace all over the web (ok, touch is also responsible, but I'll still primarily blame Apple).

      You almost need a 4K screen to get as much information as we used to on 800x600. I want a high-density button! Or more precisely, I want the high density as default, and you can get a "claustro" button, right next to the "big font" and "high contrast" buttons.

      • (Score: 2, Funny) by cocaine overdose on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:42PM (3 children)

        You mistake me, fellow, for a man of the "big bright button battalion." He who cannot use a website unless the palette contains only colors in the 235+ RGB range, buttons with 40px padding, and 20pt text! Woe, this is not me. The word I used was claustrophobia, but it's not the right definition. Big everything is claustrophobic! If I had it my way, it all'd be 4pt xterm-default monospace, no anti-aliasing, no borders, no headers, no bars, no buttons, no scrollbars, no BLOAT. I want my machine lean, like it just escaped a concentration camp. I want to be able to have 40 firefoxes open, one on top of the other, and still be able to get things done. I want it SMALL! I want it LEAN! It's my money, and I WANT IT NOW!!!
        • (Score: 1) by DECbot on Wednesday March 21 2018, @12:04AM (2 children)

          by DECbot (832) on Wednesday March 21 2018, @12:04AM (#655731) Journal

          4pt xterm-default monospace...

          Just like the article said, it's all about the kerning and the predictable space each letter occupies. If you increase the kerning, the words are easier to read.
           
          And that makes me wonder yet again, in the age of ball point pens, pencils, and keyboards why do we use cursive?

          --
          cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @12:22AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @12:22AM (#655743)

            Cursive is dying. Netcraft confirms it!

          • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Magic Oddball on Wednesday March 21 2018, @08:45AM

            by Magic Oddball (3847) on Wednesday March 21 2018, @08:45AM (#655992) Journal

            If by "cursive" you're referring to any flowing hand-writing, then the answer is simply that we still use it because once it's in muscle memory, it's usually faster to write with than block-printing. The only problem is that the cursive most Americans learn (like the Palmer Method [wikipedia.org]) can either be fast or legible, but rarely both at the same time.

            Schools should ditch the overly-loop-filled cursive most of us learned AND block-printing, though, in favor of just teaching Modern Italic, which combines cursive's speed with letter-by-letter legibility. (I can't find any decent free sites about it, but modern italic handwriting looks a lot like italicized serif fonts.)

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:18PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:18PM (#655665)
    I      s            t      h      e      r      e            a            l      i      m      i      t      ?
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by FatPhil on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:57PM (1 child)

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:57PM (#655693) Homepage
      cool keming, bro!
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:13PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:13PM (#655701)

        Dude! I want to suck your fat cock!!

    • (Score: 1) by DECbot on Wednesday March 21 2018, @12:06AM

      by DECbot (832) on Wednesday March 21 2018, @12:06AM (#655733) Journal

      o.    N

      --
      cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:35PM (5 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:35PM (#655677) Homepage Journal

    I learned to touch-type in just three days as a result of a missile first strike which rained upon me not death but letters. Also triplets like jtj.

    My boss wrote so he could learn to type himself.

    When I told him how impressed I was with his product, he said "You used a 386. I wrote it for an 8086. It's full of fixed timing loops."

    He knew that from the start but didn't tell me just to see what would happen.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:52PM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @10:52PM (#655690)

      Today we had a primary election. They give you a paper form to declare your party. I've forgotten how to write because of keyboards.

      The volunteers who hand out ballots at the polling place are retired pensioners. They don't even remember how to type because of touch screens.

      Vote Green!

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:21PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:21PM (#655709)

        Vote Green!

        Or vote Libertarian.

        But whatever one does, one must resist the temptation to vote for the One Party. The One Party tends to sprinkle either Ds or Rs behind the names of their candidates, so just avoid those and look at the candidates with Gs or Ls. WSWS keeps singing the praises of the Socialist Equality Party, but right now the Greens and Libertarians seem the best positioned in terms of ballot access.

        Maybe if we vote in enough Greens and Libertarians, then the Natural Law folks and WSWS' SEP would have a chance too. Then we might be able to give democracy another try.

        • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:28PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:28PM (#655711)

          ^ Gay socialist advocates replacing the D/R One Party System with the G/L One Party System.

        • (Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:52PM

          by PartTimeZombie (4827) on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:52PM (#655721)

          I'm not sure why you would bother voting Green or Libertarian in the US.

          Do you really think the corporate interests who run the joint will let outsiders in? That might dilute their influence.

          Meanwhile, if I vote Green I can be sure that vote will count, due to proportional voting and proper campaign finance limits.

        • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Wednesday March 21 2018, @04:16AM

          by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Wednesday March 21 2018, @04:16AM (#655896) Homepage Journal

          I'll be sending him some money Real Soon Now.

          "Buy yourself something nice" I'll say in my cover letter

          I won't ask him to do anything specific. He's already doing it

          I don't know how much I'll send yet. I have to do up a spreadsheet with my budget

          I'm also going to buy another Bitmain Antminer L3+, a used car and a used MacBook Pro

          I need lots of wiggle room for all the hookers and blow

          --
          Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
  • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:02PM (12 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:02PM (#655697)

    Muh kids! Muh reading! Muh riting! Muh rithmitic!

    Fucking idiots.

    You fucking idiots want to know why your kids can't read and can't do maths?

    LOOK AT YOUR FUCKING SELVES.

    WHY THE FUCK SHOULD YOUR KIDS LEAN TO READ WHEN YOU DON'T VALUE READING AND MATHS, MURCAN PARENTS?

    Sorry for shouting! I feel much better now that it's out of my system.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:17PM (11 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:17PM (#655705)

      LEAN TO READ

      I ♥ fat reading.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:23PM (10 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 20 2018, @11:23PM (#655710)

        Ah, I see my error. I should not have mentioned writing. Then I would not have been visited by Muphry's Law.

        • (Score: 1, Disagree) by cocaine overdose on Wednesday March 21 2018, @12:01AM (8 children)

          Should not of*
          • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday March 21 2018, @12:52AM (7 children)

            by MostCynical (2589) on Wednesday March 21 2018, @12:52AM (#655759) Journal

            *for those for whom grammar iwas not taught correctly

            --
            "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
            • (Score: 1) by cocaine overdose on Wednesday March 21 2018, @02:19AM (6 children)

              You are write, uwas not.
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @06:38AM (5 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @06:38AM (#655944)

                What if they simply had a typo? What if it was "I am WHITE"? Would you approve then? Or just stuff it up your nose?

                • (Score: 1) by cocaine overdose on Wednesday March 21 2018, @10:43AM (4 children)

                  I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that you think I'm a drug addict and a racist.
                  • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @04:06PM (3 children)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @04:06PM (#656163)

                    Geeze, I wonder what gives people that impression? Other than your handle and your posts, I mean.

                    • (Score: 1) by cocaine overdose on Wednesday March 21 2018, @04:31PM (2 children)

                      It escapes my mind how anyone would associate cocaine and white supremacy. If anything, the urban tribes are famous for their proclivity for crack cocaine.

                      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @04:50PM (1 child)

                        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @04:50PM (#656191)

                        It escapes my mind how anyone would associate cocaine and white supremacy.

                        Right, because cocaine nosejobs were never a thing on Wall Street.

                         
                        Also, using ecode instead of tt as your monospace tag makes you look like you're quoting yourself.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @12:03AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @12:03AM (#655730)

          Glass houses, my perfect friend.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Wednesday March 21 2018, @10:45AM (3 children)

    by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday March 21 2018, @10:45AM (#656027) Journal
    It's 10-15 years since it was determined that syntax highlighting improves reading speed / comprehension in natural language as well as programming languages. When was the last time you saw a book for children that coloured nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on differently?
    --
    sudo mod me up
    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday March 21 2018, @02:58PM (2 children)

      by Freeman (732) on Wednesday March 21 2018, @02:58PM (#656118) Journal

      I saw it in the children's textbook I taught from over 10 years ago. Can't say that I've seen it in recreational children's books, though.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
      • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday March 21 2018, @03:18PM (1 child)

        by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday March 21 2018, @03:18PM (#656128) Journal
        Interesting, what books and did they have a consistent set of colours for parts of speech across multiple books?
        --
        sudo mod me up
        • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday March 21 2018, @04:09PM

          by Freeman (732) on Wednesday March 21 2018, @04:09PM (#656164) Journal

          It's been too long for me to remember and my google-fu didn't help.

          --
          Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @05:24PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @05:24PM (#656221)

    If you want it readable:

    1. no hyphenation

    2. don't even split phrases or clauses across lines

    3. keep the lines kind of short, with large vertical spacing, to avoid reading on the wrong line

    4. use small text (kids usually see better than adults) to allow full sentences on short lines

    5. high-quality printing: not pixelated, no double-strike pages, no fading in areas with lots of black, ink can't be smeared after dry, ink doesn't bleed along the paper fibers

    It shouldn't be hard, but a typical book misses much of this. Much of it applies even to books for adults.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @06:43PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 21 2018, @06:43PM (#656278)

      6. no monkey business with the kerning -- you do ragged right and that's all

  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday March 22 2018, @03:56AM

    by darkfeline (1030) on Thursday March 22 2018, @03:56AM (#656474) Homepage

    "Letter-spacing" is better known as kerning. Nice research, but maybe Sacchi would want to talk to some typesetters first, who have centuries of experience on this topic.

    --
    Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
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