The legibility threshold of Chinese characters in three-type styles

A recognition test was conducted on the most commonly used Chinese characte rs in the Ming, Kai, and Li styles, measuring the minimum visible size of e ach character in each style. A total of 120 college students participated i n the experiment. Each character was initially displayed on a PC screen at its minimum size and enlarged gradually until the participant could recogni ze it. Analysis of variance showed that character style and number of strok es both have a significant impact on the legibility threshold. Ming is the most legible among the three styles, and Kai is also significantly more leg ible than the Li style. A regression equation for predicting the legibility threshold based on the number of strokes in a character indicates that an inclusion of an additional stroke in a character must be compensated for by an enlargement of the character size of approximately 0.25 min of are to m aintain the same legibility.