Masked priming effects are modulated by expertise in the script.
In a recent study using a masked priming same–different matching task, García-Orza, Perea, and Muñoz (2010) found a transposition priming effect for letter strings, digit strings, and symbol strings, but not for strings of pseudoletters (i.e., [Formula: see text] produced similar response times to the control pair [Formula: see text]). They argued that the mechanism responsible for position coding in masked priming is not operative with those “objects” whose identity cannot be attained rapidly. To assess this hypothesis, Experiment 1 examined masked priming effects in Arabic for native speakers of Arabic, whereas participants in Experiments 2 and 3 were lower intermediate learners of Arabi…
Are transposition effects specific to letters?
Recent research has consistently shown that pseudowords created by transposing two letters are perceptually similar to their corresponding base words (e.g., jugde–judge). In the framework of the overlap model (Gomez, Ratcliff, & Perea, 2008), this effect is due to a noisy process in the localization of the “objects” (e.g., letters, kana syllables). In the present study, we examine whether this effect is specific to letter strings or whether it also occurs with other “objects” (namely, digits, symbols, and pseudoletters). To that end, we conducted a series of five masked priming experiments using the same–different task. Results showed robust effects of transposition for all objects, ex…
Position Coding in Two-Digit Arabic Numbers
Digit position coding in two-digit Arabic numbers was examined in two masked priming experiments. In Experiment 1, participants had to decide whether the presented stimulus was a two-digit Arabic number (e.g., 67) or not (e.g., G7). Target stimuli could be preceded by a prime which (i) shared one digit in the initial position (e.g., 13-18), (ii) shared one digit but in a different position (83-18), and (iii) was a transposed number (81-18). Two unrelated control conditions, equalized in terms of the distance between primes and targets with the experimental conditions, were also included (e.g., 79-18). Results showed a priming effect only when prime and target shared digits in the same posi…
Electrophysiological signatures of masked transposition priming in a same-different task: Evidence with strings of letters vs. pseudoletters
Research on masked transposed-letter priming (i.e., jugde-JUDGE triggers a faster response than jupte-JUDGE) has become a key phenomenon to reveal how the brain encodes letter position. Recent behavioural evidence suggests that the mechanism responsible for position coding in a masked priming procedure works with familiar "object" identities (e.g., letters, digits, symbols) but not with unfamiliar object identities (e.g., pseudoletters). Here we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to explore the time course of masked transposition priming of letters vs. pseudoletters in a cue-target same-different matching task. Target stimuli were preceded by a masked prime that could be: (i) identical to…
Is VIRTU4L larger than VIR7UAL? Automatic processing of number quantity and lexical representations in leet words.
Recent research has shown that leet words (i.e., words in which some of the letters are replaced by visually similar digits; e.g., VIRTU4L) can be processed as their base words without much cost. However, it remains unclear whether the digits inserted in leet words are simply processed as letters or whether they are simultaneously processed as numbers (i.e., in terms of access to their quantity representation). To address this question, we conducted two experiments that examined the size congruity effect (i.e., when comparisons of the physical size of numbers are affected by their numerical magnitudes) in a physical-size judgment task. Participants were presented with pairs of leet words th…
Corrigendum to “Electrophysiological signatures of masked transposition priming in a same-different task: Evidence with strings of letters vs. pseudoletters” [Neurosci. Lett. 515 (2012) 71–76]
wo images were inadvertently left out of the 2nd paragraph of the reviously published article. Please see corrected paragraph and mages below. In a series of behavioural experiments, Garcia-Orza et al. [10] xamined whether masked transposition priming is specific to leter processing. They employed a masked priming same-different atching task in which participants were required to press a utton if cue and target were the same and to press another utton if cue and target were different (see [15,16] for reviews f this task). A briefly presented transposed-letter masked prime as presented immediately before the target stimulus. Garciarza et al. ([10] Experiments 1–4]) found a masked transpositi…