Speed of Reading in the Vertically and Horizontally Arranged Letters: Preliminary Report

ABSTRACT

In korean books, letters are arranged either in horizontal lines or in vertical rows. Comparison has been made by the authors regarding the speed of reading in these arrangements. Subjects were divided into the following five groups primary school pupil, junior and senior high school boy, College student of liberal arts, college student of natural science and middle-aged people. With the chinese letters, the speed of reading was faster when letters are arranged vertically only in high school boy. In others, the speed of reading showed no significant difference regardless of the arrangement of letters. This fact probably be due to the small number of observations and insufficient number of letters.