Dynamic Chinese text on a single-line display: effects of presentation mode

Visual requirement for Chinese reading with normal vision

OBJECTIVES

Reading performance has been considered as an effective functional endpoint for low vision. Contrary to many extensive studies for reading performance in English, there are few systematic studies for Chinese reading.

METHODS

In the present study, the reading performance of 30 normally sighted Chinese college students was systematically investigated. All participants passed the equivalent test of Cambridge ESOL PET in China. The reading speeds for Chinese and English text at a variety of text sizes were measured with rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). The threshold acuities for Chinese characters and English letters were measured. Maximum reading speed, critical font size, and critical acuity reserve were derived according to the individual's reading speed curve.

RESULTS

The maximum reading speed for Chinese characters was 259.5 ± 38.2 characters/min, which was significantly faster than that for English letters (135.7 ± 18.5 words/min, p = 2.8 × 10^-18 ). The critical font size for Chinese characters was larger than that for English letters (24.2 ± 2.8 arcmin vs. 20.7 ± 1.0 arcmin, p = 1.6 × 10^-7 ). Interestingly, the critical acuity reserve was similar for these two languages (3.4 ± 0.4 for Chinese and 3.4 ± 0.2 for English, p = 0.4).

CONCLUSION

The present study provides the first step for establishing visual functional endpoints for Chinese reading. Our findings pose rigorous constrains on present theories in language information processing and brain plasticity.

White spaces, music notation and the facilitation of sight-reading

The use of interword separation has consistently been proven to enhance fluency in reading language scripts. At the same time, neurophysiological evidence has shown that music and language scripts can activate very similar neural circuitry that integratively encodes the symbols that comprise them. By analogy to interword separations in language, we hypothesize that visual separation cues in musical scores should facilitate music reading. We report an experiment in which separating short fragments of musical discourse by vertical white gaps in the notation enhanced sight-reading fluency by significantly reducing the number of mistakes that musicians made when reading the scores without previous preparation. These results are in accordance with a view of music reading as sharing cognitive strategies with language reading; they have significant implications for our understanding of the acquisition of musical literacy and for the design of musical scores, and for our knowledge of the sense-making processes involved in reading in general.

Rapid Serial Visual Presentation Display on a Small Screen: Reading Chinese While Walking

This study examined the effects of presentation unit (word-byword or single line) and presentation duration [171, 213, 240, and 308 msec, per character (msec./C)] on the comprehension of Chinese rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) displays read from the small screen of a mobile phone in three different contexts (seated, walking on a treadmill, and walking through an outdoor course). 30 native Chinese readers ages 19 to 26 were recruited as participants. Scores on reading comprehension showed that presentation unit and presentation duration significantly affected reading comprehension, and interactions between factors were also significant. When the presentation unit was word-by-word, no significant difference in reading comprehension was observed under different presentation durations. However, when the presentation unit was a single line, reading comprehension deteriorated with the shortest presentation duration of 171 msec./C. With regard to context, participants had a higher mean reading comprehension score in the seated context than in walking contexts, but the difference was not significant.

Learning and context of use for small-screen leading displays on visual performance in a Chinese sample

Leading displays represent mechanisms for exhibiting temporal instead of spatial information to overcome the limited display space of mobile devices. Prior studies focused only on information presented but disregarded the influence of context of use and learnability. In this study, 12 Chinese-speaking college students were presented a small-screen mobile device that simultaneously showed 100 Chinese characters and a 30-character leading display. Analyzed were presentation rate (250, 350, and 450 characters per minute), presentation mode (character-by-character or word-by-word), and learning (5 practice sessions) by instructing the subjects to perform a static information search task to identify the location of target characters on the screen and through an evaluation of reading comprehension for the text presented in the leading display. There was no significant change in performance over the 5 days of practice, but the rate of presentation and word-by-word presentation significantly affected reading comprehension. Results indicated that none of the leading-display factors distracted subjects from the static information-search task, but they were influenced by comprehension of the leading-display content.