Bever, T. G. (1991). Spacing printed text to isolate major phrases improves readability. Visible Language, 25(1), 74-87.

Bever, T.

1991

Bever, T. G. (1991). Spacing printed text to isolate major phrases improves readability. Visible Language, 25(1), 74-87.

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Three-linguistically-motivated algorithms for assigning between-word space sizes were compared for their impact on text readability: a computer-implemented heuristic analysis assigned extra spaces between word groups corresponding to major phrases; a phrase-structure analysis assigned each space a size proportional to the depth of the phrase structure at that point; a prosodic analysis assigned space sizes proportional to the between-word pauses indicated if the sentences were spoken; finally, an even-spacing algorithm, assigned a constant amount of space between each word on a line. The readability of the formats were contrasted using the Cook-Chapman find-the-odd-word test in a paragraph version. The readability results showed the following significant ordering of increasing difficulty: heuristic -> phrase-structure = prosodic = evenspaced. The reason that spacing based on the heuristic parser results in better comprehension than bases on the complete phrase structure may be that good readers guide their eye movements by a similarly cruse initial parse of texts. These results suggest that the readability of text can be improved with the aid of a rudimentary automatic parser.

As expected, there was a little improvement in the readability of the second set of even-spaced materials. The greatest numerical advantage was for the phrasereed materials, the next greatest for the phrase-structure materials and there was no advantage for the prosodic materials. This study confirms the finding of Jandreau et al that the phrasetreed materials are read more efficiently than standard right-ragged format.

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