502 



THE BELL SYSTEM TECHNICAL JOTTRXAL, MARCH 1057 



27-word alphabet including the space, or 5.5 bits/word for the average 

 of 4.5 letters/word plus one space following a word. Newman and 

 Gerstman^ give a figure of 2 bits/letter. It is quite uncertain, however, 

 what the true value may be. Table I compares the information rate for 

 the preferred list with that for prose assuming 5 and 10 bits/ word. 



When words were taken at random from the same prose sources, the 

 reading rates dropped to 3.7, .3.3 and 2.7 words/sec. These rates are 

 about the same as for the preferred list. 



The information content of scrambled prose can be estmiated much 

 more accurately than that for prose, since the correlations associated 



5.0 

 4.5 

 4.0 

 3.5 

 3.0 

 2.5 

 2.0 



1.5 

 4.0 



3.5 



a. 

 ^3.0 



10 



o 

 *2.0 



1.5 

 4.0 



3.5 



3.0 



2.5 



2.0 



1.5 



2 3 4 



SYLLABLES PER WORD 



Fig. 3 — Effect of word length and familiarity. 



