Text – background polarity affects performance irrespective of ambient illumination and colour contrast

@article{Buchner2007TextB,
  title={Text – background polarity affects performance irrespective of ambient illumination and colour contrast},
  author={Axel Buchner and Nicholas W. Baumgartner},
  journal={Ergonomics},
  year={2007},
  volume={50},
  pages={1036 - 1063}
}
In a series of experiments, proofreading performance was consistently better with positive polarity (dark text on light background) than with negative polarity displays (light text on dark background). This positive polarity advantage was independent of ambient lighting (darkness vs. typical office illumination) and of chromaticity (black and white vs. blue and yellow). A final experiment showed that colour contrast (red text on green background) could not compensate for a lack of luminance… 
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References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 49 REFERENCES
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TLDR
No evidence suggested differential effects of luminance polarity or hue, with the only exception that cool background colors tended to be preferred for the light-on-dark polarity.
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This study ascertained that CRTs using a positive display polarity (dark characters on bright background) are ergonomically more appropriate for VDT operators than ones using a negative display…
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TLDR
The findings suggest that color contrast and Luminance contrast are coded in similar ways in the visual system but that the neural signals used in letter recognition are carried by different pathways for color and luminance.
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TLDR
Reading speeds tended to be slower for the negative image conditions, but reading comprehension scores were similar for all conditions, and visual fatigue was significantly greater when subjects read from negative microfiche projected on a metal screen or from the screen of a VDT with positive-appearing images.
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TLDR
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TLDR
VDU text-editing induces contrast adaptation at the predominant spatial frequencies (periodicity) of the text page, and displays of negative polarity induce stronger contrast adaptation than displays of positive polarity, while at medium spatial frequencies no effect of contrast polarity was observed.
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Abstract In future, as well as visual human-computer interfaces, acoustic interfaces will get more and more important. However, the visual channel will be the more important channel due to its…
Psychophysics of reading—V. The role of contrast in normal vision
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