Leading and legibility.

Abstract

In the literate adult, reading is a rapid, smooth-running, and highly automatized performance, which may go on for a long time without noteworthy lapse or hesitation. It appears to be a simple operation, but it is not. Even in highly practiced subjects it can scarcely be called "simple," because it depends upon the cooperation of a large number of heterogeneous conditions. In the first place, the constant readjustment of the eyes to the page is complicated. The leaps and pauses which the eyes make in reading involve a complex and delicate mechanism. Again, the total state of the central organ and its functional tendencies, taken together with the mental concomitants of attention, associability, and the touching off of meaning, form a second set of conditions upon which reading depends. And, finally, the apprehension of the written or printed characters rests upon a large number of local factors which may retard or facilitate the process. In the reading of print, for example, the color and lighting of the page and of the print, the size and form of the type, the length of the line and the spacing of the letters, all have their effect upon the rapidity and the ease of reading.These three sets of conditions, which we may roughly distinguish as peripheral, central and mental, and typographical, have suggested to psychology a great many problems. The conditions are all closely interrelated; but experimental progress has been made only when one factor or another has been isolated for study.1 In our present small investigation, we have tried to isolate one of the "typographical" conditions;2 the factor of 1 The psychology of reading has already acquired a large bibliography. Most of the older titles may be found in Huey, E. B., The psychology and pedagogy of reading, etc., New York, 1913. A number of recent pedagogical studies of reading are exemplified by the monograph, Gray, C. T., Types of reading ability, Chicago, 1917. 2 A partial list of "typographical" conditions, naming twelve factors of this sort, is given by Legros, L.

Effects of typographic factors in advertising‐based persuasion: A general model and initial empirical tests

“…However, very large interline spacing may be no better, because it may increase the difficulty of tracking from line to line, thus increasing fixation times and reducing reading speed. The preceding discussion suggests a possible inverted-U-shaped relationship between interline spacing and legibility that finds empirical support in research by Bentley (1921).…”

Reading Speed Benefits from Increased Vertical Word Spacing in Normal Peripheral Vision

“…This is consistent with some reports that crowding is a near-resolution phenomenon. 15 By varying the amount of leading between lines of text, Bentley 18 and Paterson and Tinker 19 found that reading speed improved with a leading of between 2 and 8 points. Tinker reported a "safety zone" (the limits within which satisfactory legibility is assured) of between 1 and 4 points of leading for a variety of print sizes and line lengths.…”

“…To our knowledge, only a handful of previous studies have provided some insight into this issue. The earliest studies that are relevant to the issue of word spacing and reading speed are probably those of Bentley 18 and Paterson and Tinker, 19 who examined the effect of line spacing (also known as leading in typography) on reading speed. In both studies, a fixed character size was used (10-or 12-point size), and line spacing was manipulated by adding between 1 and 9 points to the "set solid" condition.…”

“…"Set solid" refers to the type set where the separation between the baselines b of two vertically adjacent lines of text (baseline-to-baseline distance) is the same as the character size. Bentley 18 and Paterson and Tinker 19 showed that reading speed generally improved with additional spaces added to the "set solid" condition, up to a few points, and then either stayed about the same at the maximum reading speed or dropped below the maximum value. In more recent years, a series of studies has been conducted to examine the role of horizontal word spaces on reading eye movements and reading speed.…”

Binocular Reading Speed with Increased Vertical and Horizontal Word Spacing in Normal and Low Vision

“…So, in the present study we used Times New Roman Font for estimating maximum reading speed of subject. Bentley 10 , Peterson and Tinker 11 , examined the effect of line spacing on reading speed and concluded thatincreased vertical word spacing, benefits reading speed.Similar result is obtained in present study but up to a spacing of 3x Calabrese A. et.al. 15 concluded that increasing interline spacing is advisable only for very slow readers (<20 words/min) who want to read a few words (spot reading).…”