Context effects in letter perception: Comparison of two theories.

Richman, Howard B.; Simon, Herbert A.

doi:10.1037/0033-295x.96.3.417

Cited by 61 publications

(53 citation statements)

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“…Others postulate that lexical information preferentially activates letters in words (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981;Paap, Newsome, McDonald, & Schvaneve1dt, 1982). Finally, words may have an advantage in processing because they contain recognizable clusters of letters (see, e.g., Richman & Simon, 1989).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The word-superiority effect does not require a T-scope

Prinzmetal

1992

Perception & Psychophysics

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Six experiments examined the possibility of obtaining a word-superiority effect (WSE) without the use of brief stimulus exposures or a poststimulus mask. In each experiment, subjects were presented a stimulus string and two alternative strings that differed by a single letter (Reicher, 1969). The alternatives and stimulus remained in view until subjects responded, and subjects were under no pressure to respond quickly. In Experiments 1-3, the stimuli were presented in very small type so that they were difficult to see. Subjects were significantly more accurate with words than with nonwords, letters embedded among digits, or letters embedded among number signs (#s). In Experiments 4 and 5, the stimuli were embedded in a simultaneously present pattern mask. Subjects were significantly more accurate with words than with single letters by themselves. In the final experiment, the stimuli were presented in a mask with specific spatial frequency characteristics, and performance was significantly better with words than with nonwords. The WSE is a more general phenomenon than previously supposed; it is not limited to a tachistoscopic exposure.Experiments in which visual stimuli are briefly presented in order to limit perfonnance are ubiquitous in experimental psychology. Instruments used to briefly present stimuli have included the electric spark generator, the gravity chronometer (Cattell, 1885), an oil lantern behind a photographic shutter (pillsbury, 1897), the tachistoscope, the point plotter, and the raster display of the familiar personal computer. Generically. these devices are known as T-scopes. Volumes of research have been based on the use of T-scopes, in one form or another.Despite the preponderance of this research, a few skeptics have questioned whether the results of T-scope experiments are informative about perception in more naturalistic settings. For example, Dodge (1907) likened studying vision with a brief exposure to perception in a thunderstorm. He contended not only that the results would fail to generalize to more naturalistic situations, but that the use of too brief an exposure would result in "making the conclusions not merely valueless but false" (p. 32). Katz (1925Katz ( /1989 complained that the frequent use of the T-scope led to a "tachistoscopic mentality." A more modem iconoclast, who was showing visitors his laboratory, is reported to have pointed to the room housing the tachistoscope and to have commented, "the devil lives there." It is true that we are rarely called upon to read briefly presented stimuli, except perhaps in a thunderstorm or in a discotheque with stroboscopic lighting.Nevertheless, research with brief exposures has led to many important findings, and so it may be rash to deni- grate this research. One of the best known of these findings, which is the subject of this paper, is Reicher's (1969) discovery of the word-superiority effect (WSE). Reicher briefly presented words, nonwords, or single-letter stimuli, followed by a visual noise mask. Subjects had to determine which...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The word-superiority effect does not require a T-scope

Prinzmetal

1992

Perception & Psychophysics

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“…Instead, we will briefly enumerate some possibilities. Enhanced discriminability might result from (I) top-down feedback from higher order units (e.g., MeClelland & Rumelhart, 1981); (2) multiple independent sources of evidence-that is, low level perceptual information as well as information from higher order units (e.g., Massaro & Cohen, 1991;Norris, McQueen, & Cutler, 2000); (3) advantages of chunking (Anderson & Lebiere, 1998;Richman & Simon, 1989); (4) a selective bias toward automatic activation of familiar letter clusters (The better recognition of letters in words ... is attributed to their advantage in competition for access to working memory, which is conferred by the encoding of familiar letter groups as units"; Estes & Brunn, 1987, p. 411); or (5) higher order units preventing encoded perceptual features from decaying or perturbing (Estes, 1975).…”

Section: Different Biases Due To Prior Study and Word Frequencymentioning

confidence: 99%

A criterion-shift model for enhanced discriminability in perceptual identification: A note on the counter model

Wagenmakers

Zeelenberg

Schooler

et al. 2000

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review

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The original version ofthe counter modeljorperceptual identification assumed that word frequency and prior study act solely to bias the identification process (i.e., subjects have a tendency to prefer high-frequency and studied low-frequency words, irrespective of the presented word). In a recent study, using a two-alternative forced-choice paradigm, we showed an enhanced discriminability effect for high-frequency and studied low-frequency words When subjects identify briefly flashed words, their performance is affected if they have studied the flashed word previously, even though they have no explicit recollection of the study episode. This effect of long-term priming in implicit memory has attracted attention from several theorists (Bowers, 1999;Masson & Bodner, 2000;Masson & MacLeod, 1996;Schacter, 1994). proposed an original and quantitative account of such implicit memory phenomena. Using a two-alternative forced-choice paradigm (e.g., LIED is briefly flashed and masked, followed by preRene Zeelenberg was supported by a grant from the Foundation for Behavioral and Social Sciences of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research. We thank Rich Shiffrin for helpful discussions and comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Correspondence concerning this article can be addressed to E.-J. M. Wagenmakers or R. Zeelenberg, Department of Psychonomics, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands (e-mail: pn_wagenmakers@macmail.psy.uva.nl or pn_zeelenberg@macmail.psy.uva.nl).sentation of the response alternatives LIED and DIED), Ratcliff and McKoon claimed that subjects tended to prefer the studied alternative, regardless of whether that alternative had been flashed or not. Such a tendency would lead to benefits when the target (e.g., LIED) had been studied, but to costs when the foil (e.g., DIED) had been studied. Further, they found that the size ofthe benefits about equaled the size of the costs (e.g., Ratcliff, Allbritton, & McKoon, 1997;Rouder, Ratcliff, & McKoon, 2000). Hence, the effect of prior study was supposed to reflect a bias rather than some kind of enhancedperceptualprocessing of the flashed word.I Additional evidence for this idea came from the observation that even if performance was at chance when neither alternative was studied, effects of prior study were still present and thus appeared to be independent of information extracted from the flashed stimulus. Similarly, subjects had a preference to choose a high-frequency (HF) alternative such as MILE over a low-frequency (LF) alternative such as TILE. Therefore, effects of word frequency were likewise attributed solely to bias. Importantly, the biases for prior study and word frequency are supposedly mediated by different mechanisms, an issue debated by Wagenmakers, Zeelenberg, and Raaijmakers (2000). Wewill return to this later. For ease of reference, we will term the original version of the counter model the counter model I.The counter model I is one of the few models to provide a quantitative account of repetition priming effe...

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“…about its simulations in a wide variety of experimental paradigms (including paired-associate, serial anticipation, fan-effect, distractor task, and auditory-span paradigms) are now in the process of being submitted for publication. The new revision combines EPAM III (Feigenbaum & Simon, 1984) and SAL III (Hintzman, 1968), the two leading models of the paired-associate paradigm, and continues to simulate the expert memory data earlier simulated by EPAM IV (Richman, Staszewski, & Simon, 1995) and the context effects in letter perceptions data earlier simulated by EPAM IIIA (Richman & Simon, 1989). EPAM VI thus provides an internally-consistent explanation of a wide variety of phenomena.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Although other models of classification learning have achieved closer fits to some of these experiments, they generally have many more free parameters, sometimes so many free parameters that it is not clear whether it is their many free parameters or their theory of human processes that is fitting the data (Smith & Minda, 2000;Gluck et al, 2001). We have not used statistical tests to compare the variance explained by these models because such tests are not valid when models have differing numbers of parameters (see Richman & Simon, 1989, for a discussion).…”

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Complex Information Processing

Klahr¹,

Kotovsky²

2013

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Context effects in letter perception: Comparison of two theories.

Cited by 61 publications

References 42 publications

The word-superiority effect does not require a T-scope

The word-superiority effect does not require a T-scope

A criterion-shift model for enhanced discriminability in perceptual identification: A note on the counter model

Complex Information Processing

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