A Strange Pattern in Certain Words Seems to Boost Your Reading Ability

A study of more than 3,000 English words found that readers judged words more highly when their letter shapes visually matched their meanings.

Words with stronger visual iconicity were also recognized faster and more accurately in existing reading datasets.

The results suggest that the visual form of written words can affect how easily people read and understand them.

The finding adds a new perspective to psycholinguistics by linking word shape, meaning, and reading performance.