A user-study measuring the effects of lexical simplification and coherence enhancement on perceived and actual text difficulty.

ABSTRACT:

Purpose

Low patient health literacy has been associated with cost increases in medicine because it contributes to inadequate care. Providing explanatory text is a convenient approach to distribute medical information and increase health literacy. Unfortunately, writing text that is easily understood is challenging. This work tests two text features for their impact on understanding: lexical simplification and coherence enhancement.

Methods

A user study was conducted to test the features' effect on perceived and actual text difficulty. Individual sentences were used to test perceived difficulty. Using a 5-point Likert scale, participants compared eight pairs of original and simplified sentences. Abstracts were used to test actual difficulty. For each abstract, four versions w

SUBMITTER: Leroy G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3707932 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature