Reading skills are indispensible in modern technological societies. In transparent alphabetic orthographies, such as Dutch, reading skills build on associations between letters and speech sounds (LS pairs). Previously, we showed that the superior temporal cortex (STC) of Dutch readers is sensitive to the congruency of LS pairs. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate ...

In the present study, using a new keyboard layout with only eight keys, we conducted typing training for unskilled typists. In this task, Japanese college students received training in typing words consisting of a pair of hiragana characters with four keystrokes, using the alphabetic input method, while keeping the association between the keys and typists' finger movements; the task was constru...

This is the most basic input device. The keyboard contains keys users press to enter data into a computer. Desktop computer keyboards typically have from 101 to 105 keys. Keyboards for smaller computers, such as laptops, contain fewer keys. All computer keyboards have a typing area that includes the letters of the alphabet, numbers, punctuation marks, and other basic keys. The keys originally w...

We investigated the possibility that pattern segmentation skills, specifically, phonological decoding, evolve implicitly in adult readers given training in an artificial script. In this Morse-like script each phoneme was represented by 2-3 discrete symbols. Subjects were trained in five consecutive sessions, on reading six nonsense words using a forced choice task that required translating symb...

In alphabetic writing systems like English or French, many words are composed of more letters than phonemes (e.g. BEACH is composed of five letters and three phonemes, i.e./biJ/). This is due to the presence of higher order graphemes, that is, groups of letters that map into a single phoneme (e.g. EA and CH in BEACH map into the single phonemes /i/ and /J/, respectively). The present study inve...

The “10-fold way” refers to the combined classification of 3 associative division algebras (of real, complex and quaternionic numbers) 7, $${\mathbb Z}_2$$ -graded, superdivision (in a algebra each homogeneous element is invertible). connection 10-fold way with periodic table topological insulators superconductors well known. Motivated by recent interest in Z}_2\times {\mathbb -graded physics (...

Inputting written Chinese, unlike written English, is a non-trivial operation using a standard keyboard. To accommodate this operation, numerous existing phonetic systems using the Roman alphabet were adopted as a means of input while still making use of a Western keyboard. With the growing prevalence of computing devices capable of pen-based input, naturally sketching written Chinese using a p...

In the present paper, we address the problem of building a binary tree which leaves carry weights in a given order and which is in some sense balanced. Such a tree is denoted as a balanced alphabetic weighted tree. If the leaves of the tree are labeled with letters, their concatenation (from left to right) gives a weighted string. The tree is balanced if it minimizes the maximum of all root-to-...

Abstract Letter similarity (i.e., perceptual distance) is a critical measure to better understand letter perception and literacy development. Despite its importance, however, measurements of for non-alphabetic scripts are limited, the shortage script interferes with identification universality uniqueness systems across different scripts. In present study, we provide comprehensive matrix Japane...

It was recently conjectured by H.A. Orr that from a random initial point on a random fitness landscape of alphabetic sequences with one-mutation adjacency, chosen from a larger class of landscapes, no adaptive algorithm can arrive at a local optimum in fewer than on average e-1 steps. Here, using an example in which the mean number of steps to a local optimum equals (A-1)/A, where A is the numb...