Typography and Sight-Reading Music

Example I: observe how large the space between treble and bass clef on the same staff are; how close the treble and bass clefs from different staffs are; how one and a half beats are connected and how beats are not connected.



Example II Big Note Score: lots of glare; difficult to read globally (by chunks)


Example III: look how badly the rests are written.



"Typography is the style and appearance of printed matter."

From the point of view of visual research, "comprehension and information processing derived from the printed word can be greatly influenced be typographical presentation. Legibility research is concerned with the efficiency of information transmissibility of the printed word." (The Ergonomics of Reading - Long,R. Garzia, Wingert ,S. Garzia - 1996) One can say the same thing is true for the printed music. How often have you bumped into a confusing edition or "disorganized" printing that only makes sight-reading frustrating and stressful?
Research has been measuring eye movement patterns to determine variations in reading speed from one typographical style to another.(Tinker, 1949) Such variations range from the duration and number of fixations to number of regressions. According to Ralph Garzia, an increase in any of these parameters strongly suggests that the reader is experiencing difficulty. Garzia also explains why (text reading) serif typefaces have superior results in terms of word legibility. He states "Serifs link the letters together to form word units...They help to maintain adequate spacing between letters and emphasize the separation between words...They help to avoid confusion by enhancing letter differentiation." If you read what he states carefully, you can easily relate it to music. Musicians often struggle to read vocal lines because the beats are not connect in units or when the spacing between beats are disproportional.
In cognitive psychology, this is called "context effect." It occurs when the surrounding environment influences perception of patterns and forms. "The strength of the context plays a role in the object recognition."(Bar, 2004)
One context effect theory called "Configurational-Superiority Effect" (Bar, 2004 and Pomerantz, 1981) establishes that objects presented in certain configurations are easier to recognize than objects presented in isolation, even if the objects in the configurations are more complex than those in isolation. People perceive differences faster when objects are integrated configurations comprising multiple lines than they do isolated lines.
Example I
The amount of space between lines is also an issue.
Example II
The type size is an inverse U-shaped curve. "Smaller and larger type sizes cause reductions in reading rate."
I have observed this problem with students every time I used those "BIG NOTES" scores. Even I feel perplexed by the exaggerated sizes and spaces between lines. Garzia states that too much space is also undesirable for legibility because the added white spaces are a glare source and the oculomotor control system may add difficulty finding the beginning of the next line resulting in rereading and skipping lines.
The Global Precedent Effect Theory* (Navon, 1977)shows that people can respond and identify small letters positioned close together in a "global" way (chunks) faster then in a local way. When letters are more widely spaced, the Local-Precedent Effect Theory* leads people to identify letters in a local way (note by note) faster than globally. In another words, it is quicker to id local features when letters are widely spaced (note-by-note) and quicker to globally (chunks)id notes when they are close together.
Example III

I strongly recommend that you read this article "The ergonomics of reading". It has a lot of information about types of ink, paper, color X black ink, margin sizes and even reading mathematical symbols.

Curiosity: "Italic type slows reading by 15 words per minute. This was found to be consistent with the subjective impressions of 96% of readers studied." (Garzia)

*Global features are features that give a form its overall shape.(Sternberg, Cognitive Psychology)
*Local features are small scale or detailed aspects of a pattern.(Sternberg, Cognitive Psychology)