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This article reviews the topic and addresses the concept of readability and the use of mathematical formulas as an approach to identify the levels of difficulty of a text that has an emphasis on healthcare-related messages. This article analyzes some studies related to the use of readability formulas for Spanish, and studies the characteristics of several mathematical formulas which have been used to analyze the readability of healthcare-related messages and texts. Finally, this research studies Francisco Szigriszt Pazos' readability formula known as the Perspicuity Formula, which has been validated scientifically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the problem of readability is studied from a psycholinguistic perspective. Readability is the intrinsic difficulty of texts to be understood. The aim of this study was to determine to what extent the readability of a text depends not only on its structural properties (linguistic complexity), but also the skills of the reader and the nature of comprehension tasks. An experimental research was carried out, in which two reading comprehension tests were developed by manipulating the complexity of texts. The tests included items to measure various aspects of comprehension according to an evaluation model based on a theoretical psycholinguistic approach. The tests were applied to 208 participants in three different types of schools. The results confirmed the hypothesis that the readability of texts depends not only on the textual properties, but also on the relationship of these with the readers' characteristics and the comprehension tasks defined in the tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Readability refers to the ease of reading and understanding a text. The need to ensure the readability of Web pages is related to universal access to products and services in the information society, which aims to provide an Internet for all. This article describes a study conducted to assess the readability of textual contents of Web portals of 40 universities at the top positions in international university rankings to determine whether the best universities have readable web pages. Mathematical formulas that evaluate syntactic difficulty of text oriented to texts written in English or in Spanish were applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an understanding on the relation-ship between readability and typography. The first part offers a historical overview from the invention of printing and its implication for the democratization of written knowledge, to the importance of shape to access meaning. The second part presents an outline on how psychological theories of percep-tion support editorial design as a means to make the graphic designing of information more readable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the possible influence of a reader's place of origin on the comprehension of health communication messages and on the formation of attitudes and intentions to behave in a precautionary manner. A measurement instrument with a reading comprehension, attitude and intention scale was administered to a group of individuals of Puerto Rican and Dominican origin (N=40) living in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The reading comprehension scale used two texts with different levels of difficulty (relatively easy and middle) in accordance with the Readability Formula for Spanish of Francisco Szigriszt Pazos. Statistical analyses revealed that no statistically significant differences (p>.05) were found in the arithmetic means of the correct answers when the two levels of difficulty were compared among the participants. There was no statistically significant difference (p>.05) among the sample for the relatively easy level of the reading test; however, for the middle level, there was a statistically significant difference (p<.05). Regression analyses run showed that comprehension and attitude together do not significantly predict the degree of intention to adopt healthy preventive behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of science fiction as educational material in a scientific-technical reading course has become highly motivating for students, even though there is some discrepancy in the learners' perception of the lexical difficulty these texts imply as compared to the popular science genre frequently used (Cartaya 2004). Some students perceive the vocabulary of science-fiction texts as "more complex" while others describe it as "simpler". Since, when selecting educational material, the readability of a text seems to be a central factor (day 1994), and the lexical configuration of a text determines its readability (Nuttal 1996, Day 1994, Carrell, in day 1994), a descriptive study was carried out with the purpose of comparing the lexical configuration of science fiction texts and popular technical-scientific texts of equivalent length and topics. The lexical profiles of both genres proved to be considerably different in terms of the content of high frequency words, academic vocabulary and lexical variation. Several conclusions that could have pedagogical implications have been drawn. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]