Brief summary re: Perceptual mechanisms and novice skepticism

[Davidovic <davidovm -at- pathcom -dot- com>]

Thanks to everyone who replied to my post about the connection between
perceptual phenomena from cognitive psychology and perceptions of written language.

A number of the responses suggested that a less literal reading of the
material is in order. Psychology, some suggested, is not a 'hard' science like
physics, and thus needs to be read with this in mind. Others offered that the
point of the material is more to emphasize the idea that context is important
in the interpretation of language. I suppose that one next step that I could
take is to find someone grounded in cognitive psychology, and perhaps someone
with a stronger background in linguistics (text linguistics, discourse
analysis, etc.), and get their input.

One person suggested that I take this question to the Info-Design Café list
for another perspective; the CHI-WEB list was also mentioned as a source of
discussions that could be of interest.

Two additional books for me to read were suggested:

Karen Schriver's "Dynamics in Document Design"
Robin Williams' "The non-designer's design book"

Thanks again to everyone who replied.

Milan Davidovic
Toronto