Hypothesizes that writing systems affect cognitive strategies at a deeper level of human information-processing than is generally accepted in present day psychology. Discusses why almost all varieties of alphabets, syllabaries, and consonantal systems have been written to the left while vocalic systems have been written to the right. (JD)

Examines societies in which varieties and degrees of literacy are possible or ordinary, such as Japan and Korea. Finds that these societies have separate but functionally interrelated writing systems, used for communicatively disparate purposes, differential mastery of which, consequently, has social and economic repercussions. Finds that…

Reviews work on three areas of visual information that are available to readers: information provided by the conventional arrangements of the print on the page, by the features of each letter, and by the shapes of entire words. (HOD)