Contrast measures for predicting text readability

Lauren F. V. Scharff; Albert J. Ahumada Jr.

doi:10.1117/12.479663

17 June 2003 Contrast measures for predicting text readability

Lauren F. V. Scharff, Albert J. Ahumada Jr.

Proceedings Volume 5007, Human Vision and Electronic Imaging VIII; (2003) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.479663
Event: Electronic Imaging 2003, 2003, Santa Clara, CA, United States

Abstract

Our previous experiments with additive and multiplicative transparent text on textured backgrounds show that readability can be more accurately predicted by adjusting the contrast with a contrast-gain-like divisive factor that includes the background RMS contrast. However, the factor performed poorly at predicting readability differences on two different patterned backgrounds. Using the same images of the previous study we presented the target words alone and single letters cut out of the target words. We found that word identification and word discriminability was affected by the backgrounds in the same way that the paragraph search performance was affected, but that letter identifiability on these two backgrounds was predicted by the metric. We also found a significant improvement from including different contrast gains for positive and negative contrasts in the metric. Unfortunately, word readability is not necessarily simply related to letter identifiability and simple contrast measures.

Citation Download Citation

Lauren F. V. Scharff and Albert J. Ahumada Jr. "Contrast measures for predicting text readability", Proc. SPIE 5007, Human Vision and Electronic Imaging VIII, (17 June 2003); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.479663

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