Human Efficiency in Numeral Recognition
Using a forced-choice method, we determined human contrast thresholds for recognising handwritten numerals. Digitised numerals were presented on a computer display with additive white static noise. The numerals were either unfiltered or were filtered to two-octave spatial-frequency bands of different centre frequencies varying from 1.2 to 17.7 cycles/object height. We had ten variations of each numeral representing the handwriting of different persons. Human performance was compared with the performance of an ideal ‘signals-known-exactly’ (template matching) observer, and the results were presented in terms of efficiency. The highest efficiency for the band-pass filtered numerals was about 11% at centre frequencies of 3 – 5 cycles/object. The efficiency declined towards lower and higher centre frequencies so that at 1.2 cycles/object and 18 cycles/object the efficiency was about 4%. The efficiencies for unfiltered numerals were about 10% – 14%, being thus slightly higher than or equal to the highest efficiency of the band-pass filtered numerals. If only a two-octave band of spatial frequencies contributed character recognition, as has been suggested previously, the unfiltered numerals would contain redundant low-frequency and high-frequency information. Band-pass filtered numerals of optimal centre frequency would contain less redundancy, and a larger proportion of contrast energy would be used. Therefore, efficiency for them should have been higher than for unfiltered numerals. Since this was not the case, it seems that human observers are able to use a relatively broad band of spatial frequencies in character recognition.