Visual knowledge underlying letter perception: Font-specific, schematic tuning.

Sanocki, Thomas

doi:10.1037/0096-1523.13.2.267

Cited by 50 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…A large grain size is embodied in models that distinguish only two different types of processing, usually referred to as "processing routes" (e.g., Monsell, Patterson, Graham, Huges, & Milroy, 1992;Paap, Williams, & Johansen, 1992;Stoffels, 1996;Van Duren & Sanders, 1988). The grain size is much smaller in models proposing that highly differentiated processing derives from the specific adjustment of parameters (e.g., Sanocki, 1987Sanocki, , 1988. Another issue is how the different processes are controlled, analogous to the nature of criterion control in criterion models.…”

Section: Mechanisms Explaining Mixing Costsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, the mixing costs in the dice/intact digits context may occur at the level of visual routines, as assumed before, but the mixing costs for different types of digits may occur at an earlier stage. In this respect it is interesting to consider the principle of fine-tuning of processing parameters, as embodied in Sanocki's (1987Sanocki's ( ,1988Sanocki's ( , 1991) descriptions model. With it, Sanocki (1988) accounted for the mixing costs he observed when participants identified letters 5 The feasibility of this view is called into question by the paradox that mixing costs are exogenous in origin (as pointed out in the introduction and as moderately supported by Experiments 1 and 2), whereas visual routines are applied to the base representation in a top-down way.…”

Section: Mixing Costs and The Nature Of Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Identifying stimuli of different perceptual categories in mixed blocks of trials: Evidence for cost in switching between computational processes.

Los¹

1999

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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Responding to stimuli of different perceptual categories is usually faster when the categories are presented isolated from each other, in pure blocks, than when they are presented intermixed, in mixed blocks. According to criterion models, these perceptual mixing costs result from the use of a less conservative response criterion in pure than in mixed blocks. According to alternate processing models, mixing costs result from time-consuming switching in mixed blocks between different computational processes called on by the different perceptual categories. In 5 experiments, participants had to identify number stimuli of different categories. The results showed clear mixing costs whenever these categories differed in their assumed computational processing requirements but not when they differed on features that seemed trivial from a computational viewpoint. The results favor the alternate processing conception.In the pure/mixed design, the levels of an independent variable are presented both in isolation, in pure blocks, and intermixed across trials, in mixed blocks. The common finding is that people respond slower to either level of the variable in mixed blocks than in pure blocks, a difference referred to as mixing costs. Mixing costs have been reported for a large number of variables, including stimulus intensity, stimulus quality, stimulus-response compatibility, foreperiod, and task set (see Los, 1996, for a review). In this article I focus on perceptual mixing costs, which are found when a perceptual variable is presented in the pure/mixed design. For instance, Van Duren and Sanders (1988) and Los (1994) had participants identify intact and degraded digits (i.e., two levels of the variable "stimulus quality") both in pure and mixed blocks of trials. In those studies, both intact and degraded digits showed mixing costs in that they were more slowly identified in mixed blocks than in pure blocks.Mixing costs have recently evoked interest among psychologists because they provide insights into human control of action. I discuss two issues: (a) the source of mixing costs and (b) the mechanism underlying mixing costs. This article is mainly concerned with the second issue, but for the sake of completeness I begin by addressing the first issue in some detail.

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Section: Mechanisms Explaining Mixing Costsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Mixing Costs and The Nature Of Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying stimuli of different perceptual categories in mixed blocks of trials: Evidence for cost in switching between computational processes.

Los¹

1999

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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“…The font-invariant representations of letters are m terms of conjunctions of attributes In the present model, there are five attributes for fee lowercase alphabet In Figure 1 the attributes are named, and one instance of each attribute is illustrated The attributes vary from letter to letter in relative position and m "extent" (how much of the attribute is included Sanocki (1986a). The instantiation of attributes as a particular letter can be described as a transformation from an abstract entity into a description of an actual form.…”

Section: Representational Systemmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In an initial experiment, four fonts were used, resulting in four regular conditions and one mixed condition involving all four fonts (Sanocki, 1986a). Subjects were reliably faster in the regular conditions than m the mixed condition, with the advantage for all-letter strings being 165 ms.…”

Section: Regularity Effects In Letter Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual knowledge underlying letter perception: Font-specific, schematic tuning.

Sanocki¹

1987

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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The representation of visual information about letters is proposed to be highly systematic, involving not only abstract information that is invariant across type faces (or fonts), but also a number of parameters whose values are determined by the current font The system exploits regularities that are characteristic of letters and fonts by becoming tuned to the details of the font This should result in efficient letter perception when the stimuli are regular (when all of the letters are of a consistent font), but not when the stimuli are irregular (when the letters are from a variety of fonts) The prediction of faster processing with a regular font, as compared with a mixed font, was examined in three experiments requiring the recognition of four-letter strings Experiment 1 confirmed the prediction, and Experiment 2 replicated the effect with the number of "features" equated across conditions. Experiment 3 showed that the disadvantage for a mixture of fonts is related to how much the representational system must be adjusted to handle the different fonts A central issue in cognitive and perceptual psychology is how familiar objects are represented and perceived. This article concerns the representation and perception of letters, which are representative of more complex objects in that they vary considerably in appearance from instance to instance: The actual form of a letter depends on the type face, or font. Therefore, it is necessary for models of letter perception to specify how the perceptual system maps letters of different fonts onto the appropriate abstract letter codes. The purpose of the present research was twofold, first, to begin developing a new kind of model of letter perception, one that uses the idea of a structural network, and, second, to test this model against a class of simpler models by examining how perceptual representations might become systematically tuned for a particular font.A useful general approach to the recognition problem is to assume that letters are represented and perceived as sets of fea-

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“…The psychological evidence that commonalities contribute to efficiency comes from advantages found in identification of letters of consistent, regular fonts, relative to mixed or irregular fonts (Gauthier, Wong, Hayward, & Cheung, 2006;Sanocki, 1987Sanocki, , 1988Sanocki, , 1991bSanocki, , 1991c. The interpretation of these results is that letter processing becomes more efficient because the perceptualprocessing system tunes itself to exploit regularities of a font (see also Sanocki, 1991bSanocki, , 1992Walker, 2008).…”

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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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Visual knowledge underlying letter perception: Font-specific, schematic tuning.

Cited by 50 publications

References 36 publications

Identifying stimuli of different perceptual categories in mixed blocks of trials: Evidence for cost in switching between computational processes.

Identifying stimuli of different perceptual categories in mixed blocks of trials: Evidence for cost in switching between computational processes.

Visual knowledge underlying letter perception: Font-specific, schematic tuning.

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

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