The Effects of Drawing Method on the Discriminability of Characters

Abstract

Three experiments were conducted to investigate the effect of drawing method on the subsequent discriminability of hand-drawn characters. A novel set of eight characters and two drawing rules were developed for use in these experiments. In Experiment 1, angle measurements performed on hand-drawn characters indicated that members of character pairs drawn using dissimilar stroke directions became more differentiated while members of character pairs drawn using similar stroke directions remained relatively undifferentiated. In Experiment 2, subjects were better able to distinguish between members of differentiated character pairs than between members of undifferentiated character pairs. In Experiment 3, subjects also appeared to be better at distinguishing between members of character pairs which had been drawn using their own drawing rule, though such a finding may depend on the exact nature of the task.