Pelli et al. (2002) show that efficiency for identifying letters is inversely proportional to their perimetric complexity (perimeter squared over "ink" area). Here we report a much larger effect of complexity in the periphery. Efficiency for simple letters is similar in fovea and periphery, but efficiency for complex letters is a factor of five worse in the periphery (15 deg). The simple letters were either Sloan (a bold sans serif uppercase font, like Helvetica) or "snake" letters made up of colinear gabor patches. The complex letters were either Kuenstler (a fancy lacey uppercase decorative display font such as might appear on a wedding invitation) or snake letters made up of gabor patches orthogonal to the letter stroke.

Pelli, D. G., Burns, C. W., Farell, B., and Moore, D. C. (2002) Identifying letters. Vision Research, Accepted, under revision.