Science of the stroke sequence of Kanji

Takeshi Shimomura · 1980

The stroke sequence of kanji has been investigated chiefly from the viewpoint of energy in the dynamics of writing together with the informational viewpoint in memorization in learning.Sample characters include all the members for daily use, and also katakana.The results show that the standard sequence fundamentally follows the law of energy minimization in writing movements, The degree of satisfaction is highest for the vertical succession among practical writing conditions.The standard sequence is considered to originate from the human adaptation for circumstances.As for the characters with more strokes, it is found that to add the contribution of easy memorization by compression of information content of the sequence, the law is satisfied by selection of the sequence of sub-systems in place of individual strokes.These results indicate that the stroke sequence greatly affects the human ability of kanji processing.

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