Lateral masking is a problem for the human

visual perception Visual perception is the ability to detect light and use it to form an image of the surrounding Biophysical environment, environment. Photodetection without image formation is classified as ''light sensing''. In most vertebrates, visual percept ...

of identical or similar entities in close proximity. This can be illustrated by the difficulty of counting the vertical bars of a

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, Machine-readable data, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly ref ...

. In

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

lateral masking refers to the interference a letter has on its neighbor.Massaro, Dominic W. and Alexandra Jesse (2005): The Magic of Reading - Too many influences for quick and easy explanations. in: Richard L. Venezky, Tom Trabasso, John P. Sabatini, Dominic W. Massaro, Robert Calfee (eds.): From Orthography to Pedagogy: Essays in Honor of Richard L. Venezky. Routledge. This is a problem readers encounter when reading a word. The identity of a letter in the middle of a word is obscured by the presence of its neighboring letters. Lateral masking may also be a problem in

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

design. A readable orthography will avoid situations in which a reader is faced with severe lateral masking.

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References

Orthography