Legibility and eye movement in reading

A review of literature of 81 titles. Much experimental work has been done on the relative legibility of different type faces and on such factors as size of type, upper versus lower case, isolated contour letters (as L and J) versus grating letters (as B and R), indenting at margin, and open spacing versus lines. Many forms of technique have been in use: the focal variator, cancellation, eye movements, reaction time for reading letters, speed of reading text, peripheral vision, distance, short exposure, illumination, etc. It would appear that a final definite ranking of faces and evaluation of factors awaits closer agreement between investigators. Much work has been done also on eye movements in reading. Individual differences have been noted as associated with school grade, with maturity, with good and poor reading ability, with oral and silent reading. Differences of exposure material have been introduced: fiction, geography, algebra, French and Latin, numerals, musical notation, Chinese characters arranged horizontally and vertically, etc. In these studies the oculomotor characteristics most commonly analyzed and measured for determining efficiency in the mechanics of reading are the number of pauses, the duration of pauses, and regressions.