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This study examined the effect of character sample density on legibility. As the spatial frequency component important for character recognition is said to be 1 to 3 cycles/letter (cpl), six dots in each direction should be sufficient to represent a character; however, some studies have reported that high-density characters are more legible. Considering that these seemingly contradictory findings could be compatible, we analyzed the frequency component of the character stimulus with adjusted sample density and found that the component content of 1 to 3 cpl increased in the high-density character. In the following three psychophysical experiments, high sample density characters tended to have lower contrast thresholds, both for normal and low vision. Furthermore, the contrast threshold with characters of each sample density was predicted from the amplitude of the 1 to 3 cpl component. Thus, while increasing the sample density improves legibility, adding a high frequency is not important in itself. The findings suggest that enhancing the frequency components important for recognizing characters by adding the high-frequency component contributes to making characters more legible.

This study aims to explain as quantitatively as possible the readability of Japanese characters in terms of certain elements in the multidimensional, and rather qualitative, space of font design. Based on a review of previous studies, two main dimensions have been selected as the most infl uential on readability； the relative character size in the bounding box, which we call style, and the stroke width, which we call weight (when discussed in a categorical way). The Gothic fonts were chosen as the target because they are well known to be the most legible. Behavioral evaluations of readability were conducted instead of subjective judgments. In accordance with the reading acuity measurement MNREAD-J, short and easy-to-read sentences were presented to participants, and the time required to read them aloud was recorded along with any reading errors； this provided three readability indices. Sentences were rendered in one of 12 different fonts consisting of four kinds of style-Old, Standard, Modern, and UD-times three weight levels-Light, Regular, and Bold. Findings for the style suggest that the enlargement of relative size represents a tradeoff with narrowed inter-letter spacing. This means that good legibility of single letter design may not result in good readability of letters in sentences. However, the weight had a notable effect especially in small sizes. Two readability indices were predicted relatively well by participants' acuity and stroke width. The effect of stroke width had a ceiling between 10 and 15 ％ of the letter size.KEYWORDS：MNREAD，legibility，readability，font，Universal Design，reading