Mental Factors in

Reading
 Introduction
• It’s apt to understand the mental processes of reading before a page
designer or editor specifies setting instructions.
• Reading occurs not by identifying individual character after each other
and building a word at a time, but by recognising the shapes of words and
group of words.
• Reading requires recognising the external outlines and internal shapes of
words.
 Mental Factors in Reading Cont’d
• The eye doesn’t move smoothly along a line, but in a succession of short
jerks, looking at the line in a series of ‘eye-fulls.’
• Eye-fulls are separated by pauses of about a quarter second called
fixations.
• It’s in these fixations that perception, the absorption of meaning, occurs.
• About 94 percent of reading time is reportedly devoted to fixation pauses.
• At the end of each line, the eye sweeps back swiftly to the next line in a
return sweep for a fresh fixation and perception processes.
 Mental Factors in Reading Cont’d
• The width of eye-full and the duration of a fixation depends on the
reader’s skill and simplicity of the material.
• A poor reader may move a word at a time with frequent regressive
movements as his eyes go back to what has been seen.
• But a skilled reader may absorb the meaning of six words in one fixation,
with fewer regressions.
• So a good typography seeks to reduce such regressions and fixations to
spur readers’ perception of a written text.
 Mental Factors in Reading Cont’d
• So, if reading occurs by recognising the configuration of groups of words,
it’s safe to note that:
a) We need to avoid excess letter-spacing that weakens the unity of words.
b) Lower case type is apt for the bulk of n/paper, magazine or book setting.
• All caps words form a similar shape, but lower case words have a variety of
patterns, especially with their ascenders and descenders.
• Besides, all caps setting occupies about 40 percent more space, with the
number of words perceived with each fixation also reduced.
 Mental Factors in Reading Cont’d
c) In reading by recognising configurations, the upper part of the lower case letter
is more important than the lower part.
d) The eye must not be distracted or the mind misled by letter shapes within the
words.
• While capitals must be big enough only to be noticed, they must be in harmony
with the lower case letters.
• If an unfamiliar element in typeface catches your attention, then that copy has
failed typeface’s readability test. Noticing such difference has slowed you down.
 Readability of N/paper/Magazine Text
• N/paper/magazine text readability can be affected by the nature of typeface,
white space, style of text type, measure of the text type and type size.
• Having earlier noted the import of selecting legible typeface and moderate use
of white space, we’d now focus on the other factors.
Text Type Style
• Two options are available in text style setting – justified and unjustified.
• The former means to set all type lines evenly, left and right, to ensure equal line
length.
 Readability of Text Cont’d
• A justified text setting comes with frequent hyphenations and variable
word and letter-spacing within the line.
• But lines can also be justified without hyphenation by simply increasing
the space between the words and letters to fill out the line.
• An unjustified text can be set ragged (set uneven) either on the left or on
the right. It may or may not have hyphen.
• The difference between this style and the justified style is that lines of
type have varying lengths.
 Readability of Text Cont’d
Type Size
• Some special and conflicting factors are considered to determine an ideal
n/paper or magazine type size.
• But note that arbitrary increase of type size does not enhance reading
efficiency.
• For a normal eye, the best type size for continuous reading is between 9
and 12 points, depending on the type’s x-height, degree of inter-linear
white space etc.
 Readability of Text Cont’d
• The eyes scan the words, in a series of starts and stops, while meaning is
absorbed during the stops (fixations).
• The eye then takes in the words on either sides of the focused central
point.
• So the type size should be big enough to be seen clearly, but the bigger the
type, the fewer the words that can be absorbed at each fixation, due to an
early limit to our peripheral vision.
 Readability of Type Cont’d
Type Measure
• A direct link exists between the optimal type size and optimal type measure.
• The larger the type size, the wider the type measure required for reasonable
number of fixations to take place.
• But a text line must not be too wide to make eye movement from line to line
difficult.
• A ‘short’ or ‘long’ line is determined within limits by type size and the degree of
inter-linear white space. In summary, small type sizes require narrow measures.