Eye movement in the recognition of handwritten kanji characters - a study with the inverse stimulus presentation

摘要

In this study, we analyzed patterns of the eye movement during the recognition task of inversely presented kanji characters. The stimuli were block-letter; well-handwritten, and poorly-handwritten kanji characters. The percentage of correct recognition was highest with the block-letter, second highest with the well-handwritten, and lowest with poorly-handwritten characters. The reaction time for recognition and the number of fixation increased accordingly. As for the global features of the kanji characters, the number of fixation increased when the characters were complex and/or asymmetrical. However, the correlation coefficient between the number of strokes ( which indicated the complexity of kanji characters) and the number of fixation remained low. There was a tendency that the number of fixation went higher in accordance with the increase of the poor handwriting index, which the authers had invented. In conclusion, other attributes of poor handwriting than the complexity of handwritten kanji characters -- namely the distortion and/or deterioration of such characters -- increased the number of fixation.