The term bouma (pronounced "bowma") is sometimes used in the work of cognitive psychology to mean the shape of a cluster of letters, often a whole word.
Some typographers believe that, when reading, people can recognize words by deciphering boumas, not just individual letters. The claim is that this is a natural strategy for increasing reading efficiency.
The term bouma is a reduction of "Bouma-shape", which was probably first used in Paul Saenger's 1997 book "Space between Words: The Origins of Silent Reading", although Saenger himself attributes it to Insup & Maurice Martin Taylor.
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