ISSN: 2534-5192 (electronic) – 2681-8566 (print)

◀ Philippa M. Steele▲ ProceedingsDennis Reisloh; Tatjana Scheffler ▶



ISBN: 978-2-487055-10-0
e-ISBN: 978-2-487055-11-7

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Do we process characters as shapes, nothing special?
Mary C. Dyson; David Březina
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Abstract. This paper addresses the question of whether we use general object mechanisms to process characters or more specialised processes. A multidisciplinary literature review includes examples of potential specialisations in other domains, such as speech or face recognition, introducing specific forms of expertise. A terminology which clarifies the relationships and representations in the character recognition process is used in identifying similarities and differences between attributes of shape perception and character recognition. The importance of the visual similarities among characters within a font and the retention of font information suggest that expertise in character recognition reflects modifications to our general perceptual processes, i.e., specialisation.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.36824/2024-graf-dyso


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Gilmore, G. C. 1985. “Letters Are Visual-Stimuli—a Comment on the Use of Confusion Matrices.” Perception & Psychophysics 37 (4): 389–90.
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Heering, A. de, and R. Kolinsky. 2019. “Braille Readers Break Mirror Invariance for Both Visual Braille and Latin Letters.” Cognition 189:55–59.
Hofstadter, Douglas R., and Gary McGraw. 1998. “Letter Spirit: Esthetic Perception and Creative Play in the Rich Microcosm of the Roman Alphabet.” In Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought, edited by Douglas Richard Hofstadter and The Fluid Analogies Research Group, 407–66. Basic Books.
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Patro, K., A. Gross, and C. Friedrich. 2025. “Spatial Biases in Processing Mirror Letters by Literate Subjects.” Reading and Writing 38:821–41.
Pegado, F., K. Nakamura, L. W. Braga, P. Ventura, G. Nunes Filho, C. Pallier, A. Jobert, et al. 2014. “Literacy Breaks Mirror Invariance for Visual Stimuli: A Behavioral Study with Adult Illiterates.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 143 (2): 887–94.
Perea, M., C. Moret-Tatay, and V. Panadero. 2011. “Suppression of Mirror Generalization for Reversible Letters: Evidence from Masked Priming.” Journal of Memory and Language 65 (3): 237–46.
Pizlo, Z. 1994. “A Theory of Shape Constancy Based on Perspective Invariants.” Vision Research 34 (12): 1637–58.
Sanocki, Thomas. 1987. “Visual Knowledge Underlying Letter Perception: Font-Specific Schematic Tuning.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 13 (2): 267–78.
———. 1988. “Font Regularity Constraints on the Process of Letter Recognition.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 14 (3): 472–80.
Sanocki, Thomas, and Mary C. Dyson. 2012. “Letter Processing and Font Information During Reading: Beyond Distinctiveness, Where Vision Meets Design.” Attention Perception & Psychophysics 74 (1): 132–45.
Sheridan, Heather, and Eyal M. Reingold. 2012. “Perceptual Specificity Effects in Rereading: Evidence from Eye Movements.” Journal of Memory and Language 67 (2): 255–69.
Thompson, Peter. 1980. “Margaret Thatcher: A New Illusion.” Perception 9:483–84.
Torres, A. R., N. B. Mota, N. Adamy, A. Naschold, T. Z. Lima, M. Copelli, J. Weissheimer, F. Pegado, and S. Ribeiro. 2021. “Selective Inhibition of Mirror Invariance for Letters Consolidated by Sleep Doubles Reading Fluency.” Current Biology 31 (4): 742–752.e748.
Walker, Peter. 2008. “Font Tuning: A Review and New Experimental Evidence.” Visual Cognition 16 (8): 1022–58.
Walker, Peter, and L. Hinkley. 2003. “Visual Memory for Shape-Colour Conjunctions Utilizes Structural Descriptions of Letter Shape.” Visual Cognition 10 (8): 987–1000.
Yin, R. K. 1969. “Looking at Upside-down Faces.” Journal of Experimental Psychology 81 (1): 141–45. 

@PHDTHESIS{brezina2018,
   AUTHOR = {Březina, David},
   TITLE = {Coherence in typeface design: visual similarity of characters in Cyrillic, Devanagari, and Latin},
   SCHOOL = {University of Reading},
   YEAR = {2018},
}

@ARTICLE{carbonell2014,
   AUTHOR = {Carbonell, K. M. and Lotto, A. J.},
   TITLE = {Speech is not special... again},
   JOURNAL = {Frontiers in Psychology},
   YEAR = {2014},
   VOLUME = {5},
   PAGES = {427},
}

@BOOK{dehaene2009,
   AUTHOR = {Dehaene, Stanislas},
   TITLE = {Reading in the brain: the new science of how we read},
   PUBLISHER = {Penguin Books},
   YEAR = {2009},
}

@ARTICLE{dehaene2011,
   AUTHOR = {Dehaene, Stanislas and Cohen, Laurent},
   TITLE = {The unique role of the visual word form area in reading},
   JOURNAL = {Trends in Cognitive Sciences},
   YEAR = {2011},
   VOLUME = {15},
   NUMBER = {6},
   PAGES = {254--262},
}

@ARTICLE{diamond1986,
   AUTHOR = {Diamond, Rhea and Carey, Susan},
   TITLE = {Why faces are and are not special---an effect of expertise},
   JOURNAL = {Journal of Experimental Psychology: General},
   YEAR = {1986},
   VOLUME = {115},
   NUMBER = {2},
   PAGES = {107--117},
}

@MISC{dyson2022sequel,
   AUTHOR = {Dyson, Mary and Březina, David},
   TITLE = {The sequel to exploring disfluency: Do we remember the visual appearance of words?},
   YEAR = {2022},
   URL = {https://designregression.com/research/the-sequel-to-exploring-disfluency-do-we-remember-the-visual-appearance-of-words},
}

@INPROCEEDINGS{gla9-dyso,
   AUTHOR = {Mary C. Dyson},
   EDITOR = {Haralambous, Yannis},
   TITLE = {{Perceptual Disfluency Through Hard-to-Read Fonts. Is There a Satisfactory Explanation?}},
   BOOKTITLE = {{Proceedings of Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century, 2022}},
   SERIES = {{Grapholinguistics and Its Applications}},
   PUBLISHER = {Fluxus Editions},
   ADDRESS = {Brest},
   YEAR = {2022},
   VOLUME = {9},
   PAGES = {101--109},
}

@ARTICLE{dyson2016,
   AUTHOR = {Dyson, Mary C. and Beier, Sofie},
   TITLE = {Investigating typographic differentiation: italics are more subtle than bold for emphasis},
   JOURNAL = {Information Design Journal},
   YEAR = {2016},
   VOLUME = {22},
   NUMBER = {1},
   PAGES = {3--18},
}

@ARTICLE{dyson2012characterizing,
   AUTHOR = {Dyson, Mary C. and Stott, C. A.},
   TITLE = {Characterizing typographic expertise: Do we process typefaces like faces?},
   JOURNAL = {Visual Cognition},
   YEAR = {2012},
   VOLUME = {20},
   NUMBER = {9},
   PAGES = {1082--1094},
}

@ARTICLE{farah1998,
   AUTHOR = {Farah, M. J. and Wilson, K. D. and Drain, M. and Tanaka, J. N.},
   TITLE = {What is "special" about face perception?},
   JOURNAL = {Psychological Review},
   YEAR = {1998},
   VOLUME = {105},
   NUMBER = {3},
   PAGES = {482--498},
}

@ARTICLE{fernandes2021,
   AUTHOR = {Fernandes, T. and Arunkumar, M. and Huettig, F.},
   TITLE = {The role of the written script in shaping mirror-image discrimination: Evidence from illiterate, Tamil literate, and Tamil-Latin-alphabet bi-literate adults},
   JOURNAL = {Cognition},
   YEAR = {2021},
   VOLUME = {206},
   PAGES = {104493},
}

@ARTICLE{gauthier2006,
   AUTHOR = {Gauthier, I. and Wong, A. C.-N. and Hayward, W. G. and Cheung, O. S.},
   TITLE = {Font tuning associated with expertise in letter perception},
   JOURNAL = {Perception},
   YEAR = {2006},
   VOLUME = {35},
   PAGES = {541--559},
}

@ARTICLE{gilmore1985,
   AUTHOR = {Gilmore, G. C.},
   TITLE = {Letters Are Visual-Stimuli---a Comment on the Use of Confusion Matrices},
   JOURNAL = {Perception \& Psychophysics},
   YEAR = {1985},
   VOLUME = {37},
   NUMBER = {4},
   PAGES = {389--390},
}

@ARTICLE{grainger2008,
   AUTHOR = {Grainger, Jonathan and Rey, Arnaud and Dufau, Stéphane},
   TITLE = {Letter perception: from pixels to pandemonium},
   JOURNAL = {Trends in Cognitive Sciences},
   YEAR = {2008},
   VOLUME = {12},
   NUMBER = {10},
   PAGES = {381--387},
}

@ARTICLE{deheering2019,
   AUTHOR = {de Heering, A. and Kolinsky, R.},
   TITLE = {Braille readers break mirror invariance for both visual Braille and Latin letters},
   JOURNAL = {Cognition},
   YEAR = {2019},
   VOLUME = {189},
   PAGES = {55--59},
}

@INPROCEEDINGS{hofstadter1998,
   AUTHOR = {Hofstadter, Douglas R. and McGraw, Gary},
   EDITOR = {Hofstadter, Douglas Richard and {The Fluid Analogies Research Group}},
   TITLE = {Letter Spirit: Esthetic Perception and Creative Play in the Rich Microcosm of the Roman Alphabet},
   BOOKTITLE = {Fluid Concepts \& Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought},
   PUBLISHER = {Basic Books},
   YEAR = {1998},
   PAGES = {407--466},
}

@ARTICLE{janini2022,
   AUTHOR = {Janini, D. and Hamblin, C. and Deza, A. and Konkle, T.},
   TITLE = {General object-based features account for letter perception},
   JOURNAL = {PLoS Comput Biol},
   YEAR = {2022},
   VOLUME = {18},
   NUMBER = {9},
   PAGES = {e1010522},
}

@ARTICLE{keage2014,
   AUTHOR = {Keage, H. A. D. and Coussens, S. and Kohler, M. and Thiessen, M. and Churches, O. F.},
   TITLE = {Investigating letter recognition in the brain by varying typeface: An event-related potential study},
   JOURNAL = {Brain and Cognition},
   YEAR = {2014},
   VOLUME = {88},
   PAGES = {83--89},
}

@ARTICLE{larson2005,
   AUTHOR = {Larson, Kevin},
   TITLE = {The science of word recognition},
   JOURNAL = {Typo},
   YEAR = {2005},
   VOLUME = {13},
   PAGES = {2--11},
}

@ARTICLE{lewis1989,
   AUTHOR = {Lewis, C. and Walker, P.},
   TITLE = {Typographic influences on reading},
   JOURNAL = {British Journal of Psychology},
   YEAR = {1989},
   VOLUME = {80},
   NUMBER = {2},
   PAGES = {241--257},
}

@ARTICLE{mcclelland1981,
   AUTHOR = {McClelland, J. L. and Rumelhart, D. E.},
   TITLE = {An interactive activation model of context effects in letter perception. 1. An account of basic findings},
   JOURNAL = {Psychological Review},
   YEAR = {1981},
   VOLUME = {88},
   NUMBER = {5},
   PAGES = {375--407},
}

@ARTICLE{mcgugin2010,
   AUTHOR = {McGugin, R. W. and Gauthier, I.},
   TITLE = {Perceptual expertise with objects predicts another hallmark of face perception},
   JOURNAL = {Journal of Vision},
   YEAR = {2010},
   VOLUME = {10},
   NUMBER = {4},
   PAGES = {1--12},
}

@BOOK{gla3-meletis,
   AUTHOR = {Meletis, Dimitrios},
   TITLE = {{The Nature of Writing. A Theory of Grapholinguistics}},
   SERIES = {Grapholinguistics and Its Applications},
   PUBLISHER = {Fluxus Editions},
   ADDRESS = {Brest},
   YEAR = {2020},
   VOLUME = {3},
}

@ARTICLE{mueller2012,
   AUTHOR = {Mueller, S. T. and Weidemann, C. T.},
   TITLE = {Alphabetic letter identification: Effects of perceivability, similarity, and bias},
   JOURNAL = {Acta Psychologica},
   YEAR = {2012},
   VOLUME = {139},
   NUMBER = {1},
   PAGES = {19--37},
}

@BOOK{palmer1999,
   AUTHOR = {Palmer, Stephen E.},
   TITLE = {Vision Science: Photons to Phenomenology},
   PUBLISHER = {MIT Press},
   YEAR = {1999},
}

@ARTICLE{patro2024,
   AUTHOR = {Patro, K. and Gross, A. and Friedrich, C.},
   TITLE = {Spatial biases in processing mirror letters by literate subjects},
   JOURNAL = {Reading and Writing},
   YEAR = {2025},
   VOLUME = {38},
   PAGES = {821--841},
}

@ARTICLE{pegado2014,
   AUTHOR = {Pegado, F. and Nakamura, K. and Braga, L. W. and Ventura, P. and Nunes Filho, G. and Pallier, C. and Jobert, A. and Morais, J. and Cohen, L. and Kolinsky, R. and Dehaene, S.},
   TITLE = {Literacy breaks mirror invariance for visual stimuli: a behavioral study with adult illiterates},
   JOURNAL = {Journal of Experimental Psychology: General},
   YEAR = {2014},
   VOLUME = {143},
   NUMBER = {2},
   PAGES = {887--894},
}

@ARTICLE{perea2011,
   AUTHOR = {Perea, M. and Moret-Tatay, C. and Panadero, V.},
   TITLE = {Suppression of mirror generalization for reversible letters: Evidence from masked priming},
   JOURNAL = {Journal of Memory and Language},
   YEAR = {2011},
   VOLUME = {65},
   NUMBER = {3},
   PAGES = {237--246},
}

@ARTICLE{pizlo1994,
   AUTHOR = {Pizlo, Z.},
   TITLE = {A theory of shape constancy based on perspective invariants},
   JOURNAL = {Vision Research},
   YEAR = {1994},
   VOLUME = {34},
   NUMBER = {12},
   PAGES = {1637--1658},
}

@ARTICLE{sanocki1987,
   AUTHOR = {Sanocki, Thomas},
   TITLE = {Visual knowledge underlying letter perception: font-specific schematic tuning},
   JOURNAL = {Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance},
   YEAR = {1987},
   VOLUME = {13},
   NUMBER = {2},
   PAGES = {267--278},
}

@ARTICLE{sanocki1988,
   AUTHOR = {Sanocki, Thomas},
   TITLE = {Font regularity constraints on the process of letter recognition},
   JOURNAL = {Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance},
   YEAR = {1988},
   VOLUME = {14},
   NUMBER = {3},
   PAGES = {472--480},
}

@ARTICLE{sanocki2012,
   AUTHOR = {Sanocki, Thomas and Dyson, Mary C.},
   TITLE = {Letter processing and font information during reading: Beyond distinctiveness, where vision meets design},
   JOURNAL = {Attention Perception \& Psychophysics},
   YEAR = {2012},
   VOLUME = {74},
   NUMBER = {1},
   PAGES = {132--145},
}

@ARTICLE{sheridan2012,
   AUTHOR = {Sheridan, Heather and Reingold, Eyal M.},
   TITLE = {Perceptual specificity effects in rereading: Evidence from eye movements},
   JOURNAL = {Journal of Memory and Language},
   YEAR = {2012},
   VOLUME = {67},
   NUMBER = {2},
   PAGES = {255--269},
}

@ARTICLE{thompson1980,
   AUTHOR = {Thompson, Peter},
   TITLE = {Margaret Thatcher: a new illusion},
   JOURNAL = {Perception},
   YEAR = {1980},
   VOLUME = {9},
   PAGES = {483--484},
}

@ARTICLE{torres2021,
   AUTHOR = {Torres, A. R. and Mota, N. B. and Adamy, N. and Naschold, A. and Lima, T. Z. and Copelli, M. and Weissheimer, J. and Pegado, F. and Ribeiro, S.},
   TITLE = {Selective inhibition of mirror invariance for letters consolidated by sleep doubles reading fluency},
   JOURNAL = {Current Biology},
   YEAR = {2021},
   VOLUME = {31},
   NUMBER = {4},
   PAGES = {742--752.e748},
}

@ARTICLE{walker2008,
   AUTHOR = {Walker, Peter},
   TITLE = {Font tuning: A review and new experimental evidence},
   JOURNAL = {Visual Cognition},
   YEAR = {2008},
   VOLUME = {16},
   NUMBER = {8},
   PAGES = {1022--1058},
}

@ARTICLE{walker2003,
   AUTHOR = {Walker, Peter and Hinkley, L.},
   TITLE = {Visual memory for shape-colour conjunctions utilizes structural descriptions of letter shape},
   JOURNAL = {Visual Cognition},
   YEAR = {2003},
   VOLUME = {10},
   NUMBER = {8},
   PAGES = {987--1000},
}

@ARTICLE{yin1969,
   AUTHOR = {Yin, R. K.},
   TITLE = {Looking at upside-down faces},
   JOURNAL = {Journal of Experimental Psychology},
   YEAR = {1969},
   VOLUME = {81},
   NUMBER = {1},
   PAGES = {141--145},
}

Mary C. Dyson; David Březina (2024), “Do we process characters as shapes, nothing special?,” in Proceedings of Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century, 2024 (Yannis Haralambous, Ed.), Grapholinguistics and Its Applications, Vol. 11, Brest: Fluxus Editions, 47–64.


@INPROCEEDINGS{gla11-dyso,
   AUTHOR = {Mary C. Dyson and David Březina},
   EDITOR = {Haralambous, Yannis},
   TITLE = {{Do we process characters as shapes, nothing special?}},
   BOOKTITLE = {{Proceedings of Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century, 2024}},
   SERIES = {{Grapholinguistics and Its Applications}},
   VOLUME = {11},
   PUBLISHER = {Fluxus Editions},
   ADDRESS = {Brest},
   YEAR = {2024},
   PAGES = {47--64},
   DOI = {https://doi.org/10.36824/2024-graf-dyso},
}