The influence of form of type on the perception of words

Abstract

The perceptibility of words and groups of unrelated letters when printed in lower-case and in all capitals was obtained by means of the distance method. Both capital letters and words in capitals were read at greater distances from the subject than letters or words in lower-case. There was only a small and statistically insignificant difference between distances at which unrelated capital letters and words in capitals were read correctly. With lower-case type, however, the difference between distances for apprehending words and unrelated letters is greater and the direction of difference is very stable statistically. These findings indicate that total word-form is more potent in the perception of words in lower-case than in all capitals, where perception seems to occur largely by letters. This conclusion is supported by the fact that the reading of words in lower-case yielded more misreadings than the words in capitals, and is suggested as an explanation of the faster reading of text in lower-case type. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)