6533b82afe1ef96bd128c19a

RESEARCH PRODUCT

Effects of masked repetition priming and orthographic neighborhood in visual recognition of words.

subject

description

Summay.-The role of orthographic neighborhood (neighborhood size and neighborhood Erequency) in visual-word recognition was analyzed using the masked repetition-priming paradigm. Specifically, we varied stimulus-onset asynchrony (33, 50, and 67 msec.) and type of prime (identical, unrelated, unprimed) in a lexical-decision task. Analyses show additive effects of repetition and stimulus-onset asynchrony. Further, the unrelated condition overestimated the repetition effects relative ro an unprimed condition. Fachtatory effects of neighborhood size and inhibitory effects of neighborhood frequency were also found. The results are interpreted in terms of current models of visual-word recognition. Visual-word recognition is assumed to involve a series of highly efficient mechanisms capable of identifying and selecting a lexical unit from a large number of words similar to the stimulus in about 150 to 200 msec. (20). Thus, investigations of the effects of lexical similarity (or orthographic neighborhood) can provide insights into the processes underlying the recognition of words. Models and Measures Most current models of visual word-recognition (cf. 10 for review) assume that word-identification is preceded by a selection of the appropriate lexical item from a relatively small set of word candidates whose specifications are roughly consistent with the ~erce~tual analysis of the stimulus word. Previous studies (I, 6, 10, 17) have equated the set of candidate words with the definition of orthographic neighbor (3): any word that can be created by changing one letter of the stimulus word, while preserving letter positions. In other words, the presentation of the word "house" would activate lexical units similar to that of "house" such as "horse," "mouse," etc. Two basic measures of orthographic neighborhood have been proposed: neighborhood frequency and neighborhood size. Neighborhood size (or Colt