Recent Papers and Presentations, most co-authored with Al Ahumada at NASA-Ames:
Lauren F.V. Scharff, Albert J. Ahumada (2005) Understanding text polarity effects, European Conference on Visual Perception. Perception 34, 133. HTML handout, PDF handout.
Scharff, L. V. & Ahumada, A. J. (2005). Why is light text harder to read than dark text? Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting, Journal of Vision, 5 (8), p. 812a (doi:10.1167/5.8.812).
Scharff, L. V. & Ahumada, A. J. (2003). Contrast measures for predicting text readability, B. E. Rogowitz and T. N. Pappas, eds., Human Vision and Electronic Imaging VII, SPIE Proc. 5007, 463-472. <(HTML paper, PDF paper)
Scharff, L. V. & Ahumada, A. J. (November, 2003). Letter Identification: Contrast Polarity and Speed-Accuracy Trade-off Strategies. Abstracts of the Psychonomic Society, 8, 67. HTML Handout, PDF Handout
Scharff, L. V. & Ahumada, A. J. (July, 2003). Why is letter identification performance better for negative than positive contrast? Berkeley Area Vision Research Day.
Scharff, L. V. & Ahumada, A. J. (2003). Letter identification latencies are predicted by an asymmetric contrast metric. Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting, p. 223 of program. HTML poster, HTML expanded text.
Scharff, L. F. V., & Ahumada, A. J., Jr. (2002). Predicting the readability of transparent text. Journal of Vision, 2(9), 653-666, http://journalofvision.org/2/9/7/, DOI 10.1167/2.9.7. (Example stimuli for this paper.)
Lauren F.V. Scharff, A. J. Ahumada (2002) Using letter identifiability to predict readability of transparent text on textured backgrounds, Optical Society of America Fall Vision Meeting, October 2002, San Francisco CA. HTML abstract , HTML poster
Scharff, L. V. & Ahumada, A. J. (2002). Identification of filtered letters in filtered noise. Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting , p.102 of program.
Scharff, L. V. & Ahumada, A. J. (2001). Predicting Readability of Transparent Text on Textured Backgrounds. Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science , 42, S733.
Scharff, L. V., Hill, A. L., and Ahumada, A. J. (2000). Discriminability measures for predicting readability of text on textured backgrounds . Optics Express, Vol 6 (4) , pp. 81-91 . ( Example stimuli for this paper )
Scharff, L. V., Ahumada, A. J., and Hill, A. L., (1999). "Discriminability Measures for Predicting Readability ," B. Rogowitz and T. Pappas. Eds., Human Vision and Electronic Imaging, IV, SPIE Proc. 3644 , pp. 270-277.
Hill, A. and Scharff, L. (1999). "Readability of computer displays as a function of color, saturation, and background texture/FONT>". D. Harris Ed., Engineering Psychology and Cognitive Ergonomics, Vol. 4 , pp. 123-130.