Does "whole-word shape" play a role in visual word recognition?

Full Abstract

To analyze the impact of outline shape on visual word recognition, the visual pattern of the stimuli can be distorted by size alternation. Contrary to the predictions of models that rely on outline shape (Allen, Wallace, & Weber, 1995), the effect of size alternation was greater for low-frequency words than for high-frequency words in a lexical decision task (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, the effect of case type (lowercase vs. UPPERCASE) occurred for low-frequency words, but not for high-frequency words. The effect of neighborhood size was remarkably similar in the two experiments. The results can be readily explained in the framework of a resonance model (Grossberg & Stone, 1986), in which a mismatch between the original sensory pattern and the abstract orthographic code slows down the formation of a stable percept.

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Author information

Author/s: Perea, Manuel (M); Rosa, Eva (E);

Affiliation: Departament de Metodologia, Facultat de Psicologia, Universitat de València, Spain. mperea@uv.es

Journal and publication information

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

Journal: Perception & psychophysics (Percept Psychophys), published in United States. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2002-Jul; vol 64 (issue 5) : pp 785-94

Dates: Created 2002/08/30; Completed 2002/09/25; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 12201337, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 11/6/2008)

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