atw: Re: Psychophysics of reading, revisited

Anyone who is a student (or staff) at an Australian university should
be able to access Tinker's works through Ebscohost, using their school
library website.

With that noted, I'll say that I have access to full version PDFs ...

Lana

On 11 April 2011 17:20, James Hunt <jameshunt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Every so often, the topic of readability is raised on this list. Various
> contributors raise queries or make unsupported assertions, the rather slight
> work of Colin Whieldon is cited, and other contributors want to know if
> there is any real research available.
> There is, but almost everybody has forgotten it.
> Over the period from 1928 to 1963, the American psychologist Miles Albert
> Tinker studied factors affecting the readability of printed texts. His
> collaborator in much of this work was the psychologist Donald Patterson. For
> a review of their work, in the 1988 Journal of Visual Literacy, see:
> http://www.ohio.edu/visualliteracy/JVL_ISSUE_ARCHIVES/JVL9(1)/JVL9(1)_pp.10-25.pdf
> Tinker's work was regarded as naive by typographers, who had their own body
> of trade knowledge. Tinker was actually not concerned with publication
> design but with improving the reading skills of students, and much of his
> work was related to the Speed Reading movement. (Semiliterate students were
> apparently a problem as long ago as 1920.)
> A search on the American Psychological Association's PsycNET site
> (http://psycnet.apa.org) brought up 28 papers by Tinker that are listed with
> the keyword "reading". Abstracts are available free, but the PDF scans of
> the original papers are, alas, behind a paywall.
> The following abstract, from one of Tinker's later papers, gives an idea of
> the style of his work.
> ==========
> "Influence of simultaneous variation in size of type, width of line, and
> leading for newspaper type" by Tinker, Miles A. Journal of Applied
> Psychology, Vol 47(6), Dec 1963, 380-382.
> "A speed of reading technique was employed with 820 readers to determine the
> effect on legibility of simultaneous variation of type size, line width, and
> leading for Excelsior newspaper type. 9 typographical variations were
> compared with text set in 8-point type in a 12-pica line width with 2-point
> leading. Results revealed that 7-, 8-, and 9-point type in a 12-pica line
> width with 2-point leading were read most rapidly and equally fast. But text
> in relatively long lines, very short lines, and small type size, or
> combinations of these with little or no leading were read significantly
> slower than the standard. Judgments for relative legibility and pleasingness
> revealed a reader preference for 8- or 9-point type with 2-point leading in
> a line width of 12 picas (12 or 18 picas for 9-point type). Text in
> relatively long or short lines, small type size, and no leading received low
> ratings."
> ==========
> The relevance, if any, of Tinker's research to the readability of our own
> publications is an interesting question, and, in the classic phrase, "more
> research is required". There may be a PhD in this for someone...
>
> JH
>
>



-- 
Lana Brindley
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