Search results for "Lexical decision"

Non-cognate translation priming effects in the same–different task: evidence for the impact of “higher level” information

2015

Norris and colleagues have proposed that priming effects observed in the masked prime same–different task are based solely on pre-lexical orthographic information. This proposal was evaluated by examining translation priming effects from non-cognate translation equivalents using both Spanish–English and Japanese–English bilinguals in the same–different task. Although no priming was observed for Spanish–English bilinguals, who also produced very little translation priming in a lexical decision task, significant priming was observed for Japanese–English bilinguals. These results indicate that, although most of the priming in the same–different task has an orthographic basis, other types of pr…

Do serifs provide an advantage in the recognition of written words?

2011

A neglected issue in the literature on visual-word recognition is the careful examination of parameters such as font, size, or interletter/interword spacing on reading times. Here we analysed whether serifs (i.e., the small features at the end of strokes) play a role in lexical access. Traditionally, serif fonts have been considered easier to read than sans serif fonts, but prior empirical evidence is scarce and inconclusive. Here we conducted a lexical decision experiment (i.e., a word/nonword discrimination task) in which we compared words from the same family (Lucida) either with a serif font or with a sans serif font—in both a block list and a mixed list. Results showed a small, but sig…

Is there a cost at encoding words with joined letters during visual word recognition?

2018

Abstract For simplicity, models of visual-word recognition have focused on printed words composed of separated letters, thus overlooking the processing of cursive words. Manso de Zuniga, Humphreys, and Evett (1991) claimed that there is an early “cursive normalization” encoding stage when processing written words with joined letters. To test this claim, we conducted a lexical decision experiment in which words were presented either with separated or joined letters. To examine if the cost of letter segmentation occurs early in processing, we also manipulated a factor (i.e., word-frequency) that is posited to affect subsequent lexical processing. Results showed faster response times for the w…

The influence of task-irrelevant music on language processing: syntactic and semantic structures.

2011

Recent research has suggested that music and language processing share neural resources, leading to new hypotheses about interference in the simultaneous processing of these two structures. The present study investigated the effect of a musical chord's tonal function on syntactic processing (Experiment 1) and semantic processing (Experiment 2) using a cross-modal paradigm and controlling for acoustic differences. Participants read sentences and performed a lexical decision task on the last word, which was, syntactically or semantically, expected or unexpected. The simultaneously presented (task-irrelevant) musical sequences ended on either an expected tonic or a less-expected subdominant ch…

Do young readers have fast access to abstract lexical representations? Evidence from masked priming

2014

Although there is consensus that adult readers have fast access to abstract letter/word representations, the developmental trajectory of such access has not been mapped out yet. To examine whether developmental readers have rapid access to abstract representations during the early stages of word processing, we conducted a masked priming lexical decision experiment with two groups of young readers (third and fifth graders) and a group of young adults. We selected two types of words: (a) words composed of cross-case letters that are visually dissimilar (DIS words; e.g., arte/ARTE [Spanish for art]) and (b) words composed of cross-case letters that are visually similar (SIM words; e.g., vivo/V…

The effects of interletter spacing in visual-word recognition.

2010

Despite the importance of determining the effects of interletter spacing on visual-word recognition, this issue has often been neglected in the literature. The goal of the present study is to shed some light on this topic. The rationale is that a thin increase in interletter spacing, as in casino, may reduce lateral interference among internal letters without destroying a word's integrity and/or allow a more precise encoding of a word's letter positions. Here we examined whether identification times for word stimuli in a lexical decision task were faster when the target word had a slightly wider than default interletter spacing value relative to the default settings (e.g., casino vs. casino…

Does Kaniso activate CASINO?: input coding schemes and phonology in visual-word recognition.

2010

Most recent input coding schemes in visual-word recognition assume that letter position coding is orthographic rather than phonological in nature (e.g., SOLAR, open-bigram, SERIOL, and overlap). This assumption has been drawn – in part – by the fact that the transposed-letter effect (e.g., caniso activates CASINO) seems to be (mostly) insensitive to phonological manipulations (e.g., Perea & Carreiras, 2006 , 2008 ; Perea & Pérez, 2009 ). However, one could argue that the lack of a phonological effect in prior research was due to the fact that the manipulation always occurred in internal letter positions – note that phonological effects tend to be stronger for the initial syllable (…

Neighborhood Effects in Visual Word Recognition and Reading

2015

Consonant/vowel asymmetries in letter position coding during normal reading: Evidence from parafoveal previews in Thai

2013

Studies have revealed that consonants and vowels serve different roles during linguistic processing. Masked transposed-letter priming effects (i.e., faster word-identification times for words preceded by a transposed-letter than substitution-letter prime) occur for consonants but not for vowels in lexical decision (Perea & Lupker, 2004). Potential differences in letter position coding for consonants and vowels during silent normal reading were investigated in Thai using the boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975). Thai has a distinctive alphabetic script with vowels taking a relatively subsidiary role in relation to consonants. Parafoveal processing of nonadjacent transposed-letter effects involvi…

Unveiling the boost in the sandwich priming technique.

2021

The masked priming technique (which compares #####-house-HOUSE vs. #####-fight-HOUSE) is the gold-standard tool to examine the initial moments of word processing. Lupker and Davis showed that adding a pre-prime identical to the target produced greater priming effects in the sandwich technique (which compares #####-HOUSE-house-HOUSE vs #####-HOUSE-fight-HOUSE). While there is consensus that the sandwich technique magnifies the size of priming effects relative to the standard procedure, the mechanisms underlying this boost are not well understood (i.e., does it reflect quantitative or qualitative changes?). To fully characterise the sandwich technique, we compared the sandwich and standard t…