Reaction time and eye movements in the recognition task of hand-written Katakana-letters

An experimental verification of the discriminant analysis of letter recognition by Hayashi's Quantification

Abstract

Hayashi's Quantification, model II, is a multivariate discriminant analysis for qualitative data. This method was applied to the quantitative indices about confusability of recognition of hand-written Japanese Katakana-letters. The experimental results of reaction time and eye movements in the recognition task corresponded well with indices computed by this statistical procedure. (a) The labels, given by the subjects to the letters, were in line with the prediction by the discriminant, (b) the reaction time and the number of fixations were bigger for highly confusable letters, and (c) those features, which were important according to the discriminant, were fixated more frequently, Thus, Hayashi's quantification procedure is valid for psychological experiments.