Initial study into the effects of translucency and complexity on the learning of Blissymbols by children and adults with normal cognitive abilities

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of translucency and complexity on the acquisition of Blissymbols by children and adults possessing normal cognitive abilities. Preschool children and college-aged adults were required to learn the referent names of 40 Blissymbols selected according to high and low levels of translucency and complexity so that 10 symbols were in each orthogonal condition (referred to as “categories”: high translucency-low complexity [HTLC], high translucency-high complexity [HTHC], low translucency-low complexity [LTLC], and low translucency-high complexity [LTHC]). The results indicated that translucency facilitated acquisition for both groups of subjects while complexity appeared to be a factor for children only. The implications of the findings for clinical practice and further research are discussed.

• Blissymbols
• complexity
• iconicity
• paired-associate learning
• translucency