Updated Procedure for Exporting MNREAD Data Files From an iPad

These are updated instructions on how to export data from the MNREAD App.

To export data from an iPad to a Mac computer:

• Plug the iPad into a Mac computer.
• Start Finder on the Mac.
• On the left bar, select the iPad under "Locations".
• On the right pane, at the top row (which lists "General", Music", Movies", ...), select - "Files" near the end of the list. This will show a list of apps which have file sharing, including the MNREAD App.
• Click on the triangle next to MNREAD to expand the folder list.
• The saved data should show up as a list of sub-folders. Select them, and drag&drop to the desktop or another location to save.

To export data from an iPad to a Windows computer:

• Plug the iPad into a Windows computer.
• Install iTunes for Windows (via the Windows app store).
• Run iTunes and select the iPad icon near the top.
• Click on "File Sharing" on the left, and choose MNREAD® from the list of app in the middle box. That will show the data files saved by MNREAD app.
• Selected the data folders and click on button "Save" at the bottom right to save to computer.

Announcing German and Dutch Versions of MNREAD

MNREAD now has German and Dutch versions, developed in collaboration
with Gyroscope Therapeutics. There are three tests (sentence sets) in
both languages. The Dutch and German versions of MNREAD are available in
chart form from Precision Vision at this link,
and in the MNREAD iPad app from the Apple App Store here.

New French Interface Option for MNREAD

The MNREAD iPad app will now present the user interface in French if the iPad language and regions settings are in French. If the iPad language and region settings are in another language and you would like to use the French interface for the app, go to the iPad's language and region settings and select French. This selection will affect the interface labels but not the language of the test sentences. The language of the test sentences is chosen from the settings within the app itself.

MNREAD release 1.11 : new tests in French and Spanish

MNREAD version 1.11 released with additional French and Spanish texts

Thanks for our collaborators at Gyroscope TX, we are now able to offer a full set of 5 French test sets (up from 3), and 3 Spanish test sets (up from 2)

Since version 1.8, MNREAD has been offering Greek as one of the test languages. With this addition, the MNREAD app now offers a full-sentence reading test in 7 languages.

We are working on include Japanese in the test suite. In version 1.11, you can find some sample sentences. Stay tuned for the full tests!

This latest release also includes updates to cover some later iPad models: iPad Pro 12.9", iPad 7 10.2", and iPad Pro 11". We also fixed a memory issue which might cause the app to crash after a long-running session.

MNREAD App rendering engine upgraded

The MNREAD app uses a relatively low-level graphic application programming interface (API) to render sentences onto the display. This API allows the app to place each word at its precise location onscreen and to control when a sentence appears. The API also helps record the duration of each stimulus presentation.

Nine million MNREAD sentences

"My father takes me to school every day in his big green car." At first blush this sentence might not seem to be particularly special. But it is one of only 95 sentences that appear on the English versions of the MNREAD chart. These sentences use a limited vocabulary of high frequency words, they are matched for length (they all have 60 characters) and for physical layout (they are printed onto three lines of left-right justified text with minimal padding of the white space between words.) Writing sentences that meet all these constraints is quite a puzzle.

In addition to having to use exactly 60 characters, we also need to keep track of the physical width of the words to make sure they will fit onto the line — which is tricky because different letters have different widths (for example ‘little’ and ‘common’ both have six letters but common is almost twice as wide). Perhaps it is not surprising that we have had fewer than 100 MNREAD sentences for the first 25 years of the MNREAD chart. 

We needed more. Other researchers have requested a larger number of sentences for their research, and we need more sentences for our own studies too. To address this, we have developed a computer algorithm that generates MNREAD sentences. Full details of the sentence generator are given in our recent publication (Mansfield, Atilgan, Lewis, and Legge, 2019). In short, the generator composes sentences using words from the limited MNREAD vocabulary, these sentences are then filtered to select just the small proportion that fit the MNREAD length and layout constraints. When we first ran the generator it was a thrill to see it output as many sentences in a few minutes that had previously taken years to produce! Now, after generating sentences for the past two summers, we have a yield of over nine million sentences. 

Here are some examples:

 

Reading performance with these new sentences is similar to that obtained with the original MNREAD sentences. We have found no difference between them for reading acuity or for critical print size. However, the sentences are not a perfect match for the originals: maximum reading speeds with the computer generated sentences are slightly slower (Mansfield, Atilgan, Lewis, and Legge, 2019).

It is unlikely that any study will ever need to use all nine million sentences — if we read them at 200 words per minute for 10 hours a day, it would take over two years to read them all! However, having so many sentences allows us to pick and choose them as required by the design of a study. For example, a study might need to use sentences with exactly ten words, or that contain exactly twelve syllables, or that do not contain the letter ‘e’, ... etc. Typically such subsets contain hundreds or thousands of sentences — more than enough for most studies. 

These sentences are freely available from github.com/SteveMansfield/MNREAD-sentences

Introducing the MNREAD Blog

The MNREAD reading acuity Chart is an eye chart for measuring visual aspects of reading. It has particular application for people with impaired vision (low vision) who frequently experience problems with reading. It is used in low-vision rehabilitation, in research including clinical trials, and in prescribing magnifiers and near-vision optical corrections.