High and low luminance letters, acuity reserve, and font effects on reading speed.

We compared reading speed with two fonts, Dutch (serif) and Swiss (sans serif). Text was displayed on a computer monitor, white letters on black, with the RSVP method. Luminance of the letters was either 146.0 or 0.146 cd m-2. Lower-case x-height of the fonts was approximately 5.5 times as large as letter acuity. At the high luminance, there was no difference between reading rates. There was a significant advantage for the Swiss font at the low luminance. The acuity reserve for Swiss was higher than for Dutch at the low luminance, which may account for the difference in reading speeds.