Document Type
Article
Source of Publication
Journal of Eye Movement Research
Publication Date
1-1-2021
Abstract
Persian is an Indo-Iranian language that features a derivation of Arabic cursive script, where most letters within words are connectable to adjacent letters with ligatures. Two experiments are reported where the properties of Persian script were utilized to investigate the effects of reducing interword spacing and increasing the interletter distance (ligature) within a word. Experiment 1 revealed that decreasing interword spacing while extending interletter ligature by the same amount was detrimental to reading speed. Experiment 2 largely replicated these findings. The experiments show that providing the readers with inaccurate word boundary information is detrimental to reading rate. This was achieved by reducing the interword space that follows letters that do not connect to the next letter in Experiment 1, and replacing the interword space with ligature that connected the words in Experiment 2. In both experiments, readers were able to comprehend the text read, despite the considerable costs to reading rates in the experimental conditions.
DOI Link
Publisher
International Group for Eye Movement Research
Volume
14
Issue
1
Last Page
14
Disciplines
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Keywords
allography, Arabic script, eye movement, eye tracking, interletter spacing, interword spacing, Persian language, Reading
Scopus ID
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Hermena, Ehab W., "Manipulating Interword and Interletter Spacing in Cursive Script: An Eye Movements Investigation of Reading Persian" (2021). All Works. 4368.
https://zuscholars.zu.ac.ae/works/4368
Indexed in Scopus
yes
Open Access
yes
Open Access Type
Gold: This publication is openly available in an open access journal/series