Abstract
Through experience, adult readers have developed strong expectations about the meaning of visually distinct characters in text organization. Typically, when upper-case or bold face words are included in lists, they indicate topic headings. Through their experience with simple indexes, adult readers learn that it is efficient to use these distinctive entries to facilitate scanning. However, many computer manuals employ the convention of printing reserved words in uppercase. These words are then included in the index in alphabetical order, without regard to their possible interpretation as topic headings. We compared the accuracy of rapid index scanning under conditions where the two meanings of upper-case either were in conflict or were not in conflict. We found that subjects were less able to spot lower-case targets when they were listed preceding a similar upper-case entry than when the upper-case entry was eliminated. Recommendations for eliminating the conflict situation are discussed.
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