Lateral masking is a problem for the human

visual perception Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment through photopic vision (daytime vision), color vision, scotopic vision (night vision), and mesopic vision (twilight vision), using light in the visible spectrum ref ...

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

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...

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 conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and ...

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

Notes

{{Reflist

References

Orthography