Letter Discrimination as a Function of Culture, Orthography and Dimensionality of Letters

Abstract

46 4-yr.-old children from the United States and 80 from Bangalore, India made fewer discrimination errors when letters were three-rather than two-dimensional. More errors were made on Kannada (Indian) than on English orthographic tasks, but there were relatively fewer errors made by Indian than American children. Younger subjects and boys made relatively more errors than other groups. The findings suggest visually perceived depth may activate the young child's enactive system dominant during the preoperational period and serve to increase accuracy of letter discrimination.