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The object
of this exercise is to find out how much the speed of human word and
number perception varies, and how that affects reading comfort and
choice of career. Specifically -
how long does
the image of a number or a word have to be displayed, in order for
you to see it clearly,
and how much
time gap do you need between images for you to see them clearly?
I am conducting
this on-line survey to collect global data about the relationship
between Visual Persistence (VP) speed (see below) and reading ability.
The research questions
are;
What is the
distribution of VP speeds in the human population?
Is VP speed
correlated with reading ability/difficulty, first written language
or age?
Is VP speed
correlated with choice of work / profession?
Is VP speed
effected by colour contrasts?
Visual Persistence
is a feature of our perceptual system. Visual images (letters of the
alphabet for example), persists in our visual system for around 40
- 300 milliseconds after the stimulus is removed from view. Some people
have a fast image decay time and others hold images for longer. When
we are presented with a rapid sequence of images (such as when reading
or tracking movement) a backlog of persisting images can build up,
resulting in multiple images persisting simultaneously. The brain
reacts by paying more attention to some of the conflicting images
and ignoring or delaying the perception of others.
This phenomenon
(one image being prioritized over another) is often called 'masking'
in the literature and may result in a range of perceptual distortions
and deletions - letters appearing to move about or change position,
reversals, parts of words or letters missing, etc. We (gts-training.co.uk)
have found that all our 'dyslexic' students have a VP speed near the
longer end of this natural range, (and read relatively slowly) and
that all our teaching staff have VP speeds near the shorter end of
the range, and can read very fast. This raises the question of whether
people's choice of occupation may be effected by their visual persistence.
If you can spare
a few minutes to take part in this anonymous survey - this is what
we would like you to do.
Click either of
the 'START. . . ' buttons at the top of the page. This starts the
display of a sequence of numbers or words. You can control the speed
of the displays by clicking on the radio
buttons above the display - these control the time delays
in milliseconds (ms). You can stop the display at any time with the
'Stop Displays' button. You can then restart either display.
Please find
the fastest speed at which you can VERY comfortably see ALL the numbers
or words clearly. When
you have found your fastest comfortable speed, stop the display, and
move on to the anonymous survey form below. The current speed setting
at the time you submit the survey form will be added anonymously
to the research database.
The displays use
a range of different foreground and background colours. Please click
the appropriate button if any of these colour combinations are particularly
good or bad for your visual system.
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