Repetition blindness for words yet repetition advantage for nonwords.

Full Abstract

Accuracy of report of words in a rapidly presented sequence is reduced if 1 word is a repetition of a previous word. This is repetition blindness. If, however, the items are pronounceable nonwords, or pseudohomophones, repetition improves recall. A repetition advantage for nonwords also occurs when subjects merely count the items or when the item between the critical nonwords is a familiar word. Familiarizing subjects with the nonwords improved the level of recall but did not affect the repetition advantage. These results are considered in relation to token individuation and other accounts of repetition blindness. The findings suggest that for identical linguistic stimuli the types bound to episodic memory tokens that are vulnerable to repetition blindness are lexical units.

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Author information

Author/s: Coltheart, Veronika (V); Langdon, Robyn (R);

Affiliation: Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, Division of Linguistics and Psychology, Macquarie University, New South Wales, Australia. veronika.coltheart@mq.edu.au

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Journal Article; Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Journal: Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition (J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2003-Mar; vol 29 (issue 2) : pp 171-85

Dates: Created 2003/04/16; Completed 2003/09/29; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12696808, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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