Abstract
The processing of letter-position information in randomly arranged consonant strings was investigated using a masked prime variant of the alphabetic decision (letter/nonletter classification) task. In Experiment 1, primes were uppercase consonant trigrams (e.g., FMH) and targets were two uppercase Xs accompanied by the target letter or a nonletter (e.g., XMX, X%X). Response times were systematically faster when target letters were present in the prime string than when target letters were not present in the prime string. These constituent letter-priming effects were significantly stronger when the target letter appeared in the same position in the prime and target stimuli. This contrast between position-specific and position-independent priming was accentuated when subjects responded only when all the characters in the target string were letters (multiple alphabetic decision) in Experiments 2 and 3. In Experiment 4, when prime exposure duration was varied, it was found that position-specific priming develops earlier than position-independent priming. Finally, Experiment 5 ruled out a perceptual-matching interpretation of these results. An interpretation is offered in terms of position-specific and position-independent letter-detector units in an interactiveactivation framework.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Angiolillo-Bent, J. S., &Rips, L. J. (1982). Order information in multiple-element comparison.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,8, 392–406.
Bjork, E. L., &Murray, J. T. (1977). On the nature of input channels in visual processing.Psychological Review,84, 472–484.
Butler, B. E. (1981). Identification and localization in tachistoscopic recognition: The effects of data- and resource-limitations.Canadian Journal of Psychology,35, 36–51.
Chambers, S. M. (1979). Letter and order information in lexical access.Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior,18, 225–241.
Chastain, G. (1977). Feature analysis and the growth of a percept.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,3, 291–298.
Egeth, H. E., &Santee, J. L. (1981). Conceptual and perceptual components of interletter inhibition.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,7, 506–517.
Estes, W. K. (1972). Interactions of signal and background variables in visual processing.Perception & Psychophysics,12, 278–286.
Estes, W. K., Allmeyer, D. H., &Reder, S. M. (1976). Serial position functions for letter identification at brief and extended exposure durations.Perception & Psychophysics,19, 1–15.
Ferrand, L., &Grainger, J. (1992). Phonology and orthography in visual word recognition: Evidence from masked nonword priming.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,45A, 353–372.
Ferrand, L., &Grainger, J. (1993). The time-course of orthographic and phonological code activation in the early phases of visual word recognition.Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society,31, 119–122.
Ferrand, L., &Grainger, J. (1994). Effects of orthography are independent of phonology in masked form priming.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,47A, 365–382.
Forster, K. J. (1976). Accessing the mental lexicon. In E. C. J. Walker & R. G. Wales (Eds.),New approaches to language mechanisms (pp. 257–287). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Forster, K. J., &Davis, C. (1984). Repetition priming and frequency attenuation in lexical access.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,10, 680–690.
Grainger, J., &Jacobs, A. M. (1991). Masked constituent letter priming in an alphabetic decision task.European Journal of Cognitive Psychology,3, 413–434.
Grainger, J., &Jacobs, A. M. (1993). Masked partial-word priming in visual word recognition: Effects of positional letter frequency.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,19, 951–964.
Grainger, J., & Jacobs, A. M. (1995).Orthographic processing in visual word recognition: A multiple read-out model. Manuscript submitted for publication.
Greenberg, S. N. (1988). Are letter codes always activated?Perception & Psychophysics,44, 331–338.
Greenberg, S. N., &Vellutino, F. R. (1988). Evidence for processing of constituent single and multiletter codes: Support for multilevel coding in word perception.Memory & Cognition,16, 54–63.
Grice, G. R., &Reed, J. M. (1992). What makes targets redundant?Perception & Psychophysics,51, 437–442.
Hammon, E. J., &Green, D. W. (1982). Detecting targets in letter and in non-letter arrays.Canadian Journal of Psychology,36, 67–82.
Humphreys, G. W., Evett, L. J., &Quinlan, P. T. (1990). Orthographic processing in visual word identification.Cognitive Psychology,22, 517–560.
Jacobs, A. M., &Grainger, J. (1991). Automatic letter priming in an alphabetic decision task.Perception & Psychophysics,49, 43–52.
Johnson, N. F. (1977). A pattern-unit model of word identification. In D. Laberge & S. J. Samuels (Eds.),Basic processing in reading: Perception and comprehension (pp. 91–126). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Jordan, T. R. (1990). Presenting words without interior letters: Superiority over single letters and influence of postmask boundaries.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,16, 893–909.
Krueger, L. E. (1978). A theory of perceptual matching.Psychological Review,85, 278–304.
Krumhansl, C. L., &Thomas, E. A. (1977). Effects of level of confusability on reporting letters from briefly presented visual displays.Perception & Psychophysics,21, 269–279.
Lefton, L. A., Fisher, D. F., &Kuhn, D. M. (1978). Left-to-right processing of alphabetic material is independent of retinal location.Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society,12, 171–174.
Mason, M. (1975). Reading ability and letter search time: Effects of orthographic structure defined by single-letter positional frequency.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,104, 146–166.
Mason, M. (1982). Recognition time for letters and nonletters: Effects of serial position, array size, and processing order.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,8, 724–738.
McClelland, J. L., &Rumelhart, D. E. (1981). An interactive activation model of context effects in letter perception: Part 1. An account of basic findings.Psychological Review,88, 375–407.
McIntyre, C., Fox, R., &Neale, J. (1970). Effects of noise similarity and redundancy on the information processed from brief visual displays.Perception & Psychophysics,7, 328–332.
Merikle, P. M., Lowe, D. G., &Coltheart, M. (1971). Familiarity and method of report as determinants of tachistoscopic performance.Canadian Journal of Psychology,25, 167–174.
Mewhort, D. J. K., Campbell, A. J., Marchetti, F. M., &Campbell, J. I. E. (1981). Identification, localization, and “iconic memory”: An evaluation of the bar-probe task.Memory & Cognition,9, 50–67.
Miller, J. (1988). Components of the location probability effect in visual search tasks.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,14, 453–471.
Morton, J. (1969). Interaction of information in word recognition.Psychological Review,76, 165–178.
Mozer, M. C. (1987). Early parallel processing in reading: A connectionist approach. In M. Coltheart (Ed.),Attention and performance XII: The psychology of reading (pp. 83–104). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Mozer, M. C. (1989). Types and tokens in visual letter perception.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,15, 287–303.
Paap, K. R., Newsome, S. L., McDonald, J. E., &Schvaneveldt, R. W. (1982). An activation-verification model for letter and word recognition: The word superiority effect.Psychological Review,89, 573–594.
Perfetti, C. A., &Bell, L. (1991). Phonemic activation during the first 40 ms of word identification: Evidence from backward masking and priming.Journal of Memory & Language,30, 473–485.
Perfetti, C. A., Bell, L. C., &Delaney, S. M. (1988). Automatic (prelexical) phonetic activation in silent reading: Evidence from backward masking.Journal of Memory & Language,27, 59–70.
Proctor, R. W., &Healy, A. F. (1985). Order-relevant and orderirrelevant decision rules in multiletter matching.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,11, 519–537.
Proctor, R. W., &Healy, A. F. (1987). Task-specific serial position effects in comparisons of multiletter strings.Perception & Psychophysics,42, 180–194.
Proctor, R. W., Healy, A. F., &Van Zandt, T. (1991). Samedifferent judgments of multiletter strings: Insensitivity to positional bias and spacing.Perception & Psychophysics,49, 62–72.
Ratcliff, R. (1981). A theory of order relations in perceptual matching.Psychological Review,88, 552–572.
Santee, J. L., &Egeth, H. E. (1980). Interference in letter identification: A test of feature-specific inhibition.Perception & Psychophysics,27, 321–330.
Segui, J., &Grainger, J. (1990). Priming word recognition with orthographic neighbors: The effects of relative prime-target frequency.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,16, 65–76.
Seidenberg, M. S., &McClelland, J. L. (1989). A distributed developmental model of word recognition and naming.Psychological Review,96, 523–568.
Townsend, V. M. (1973). Loss of spatial and identity information following a tachistoscopic exposure.Journal of Experimental Psychology,98, 113–118.
Wolford, G., &Hollingsworth, S. (1974). Retinal location and string position as important variables in visual information processing.Perception & Psychophysics,16, 437–442.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Peressotti, F., Grainger, J. Letter-position coding in random consonant arrays. Perception & Psychophysics 57, 875–890 (1995). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03206802
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03206802