Intention and performance when reading aloud: Context is everything

Besner, Derek; McLean, David; Young, Torin; Risko, Evan F.

doi:10.1016/j.concog.2021.103211

Cited by 2 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…To the contrary, a number of factors determine whether an intention is a necessary preliminary to word identification. The additivity of stimulus quality and SOA seen in the first of the Besner et al’s (2021) experiments with the Go–NoGo procedure (50% Go trials) is clearly a soft bottleneck (i.e., not structural) given that in the second experiment, where the Go probability was 80%, stimulus quality and decreasing SOA were under-additive. In short, the relation between stimulus identification and intention appears to be strongly context dependent.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…In a second experiment in Besner et al (2021), Go trials in the cued condition now occurred on 80% of the trials rather than 50%. If this change is sufficient to prompt the reader to ready a pronunciation on all trials during the time that they are implementing a task set, then the stimulus quality effect should now be smaller at the zero SOA than in the long SOA condition.…”

Section: What Role Does Intention Play In Explicit Word Identification?mentioning

confidence: 93%

“…Figure 8 Mean RTs as Function of Bin and Stimulus Quality for 50% GO (Cued) Condition (Left-Hand Panel) and 100% (Right-Hand Panel) GO Condition(Besner et al, 2021; Experiment 1) …”

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confidence: 99%

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Visual word recognition: Attention, intention, context, and processing dynamics.

Besner¹

2022

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology / Revue canadienne

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The notion that some mental processes are "automatic" while others are "controlled" is a distinction that appears in virtually all cognition textbooks, as well as in thousands of papers and book chapters. Indeed, so entrenched is the automatic side of this distinction that various leading computational accounts make no mention of it, but instead assume it implicitly. These models, and the field more generally, assume that processing is stimulus triggered and does not need any form of attention or an intention as a preliminary. Further, the fundamental processing dynamics underlying such automatic processing is widely seen as consisting of interactive activation and autonomous in that it unfolds in the same way across contexts. I review a number of findings from my lab that lead me to a different conclusion. Visual word recognition requires a consideration and integrated understanding of automaticity, attention, intention, context, and cognitive processing. I present various findings that challenge the preeminent role ascribed to interactive activation as implemented in the dominant computational models. I conclude that, going forward, the time is due for computational models of visual word recognition (and researchers in the field more generally) to acknowledge that the findings reported here constitute benchmarks that constrain theory and present opportunities for making meaningful advances in our understanding of visual word recognition (and perhaps of cognition more generally). A few proposals for how we might think about some of these processes are offered. Public Significance StatementI provide a review of 4 decades of work on visual word recognition as seen from the perspective of my lab. In particular, I consider the interrelations between several computational models, attention, intention, context, and the underlying processing dynamics.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: What Role Does Intention Play In Explicit Word Identification?mentioning

confidence: 93%

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Visual word recognition: Attention, intention, context, and processing dynamics.

Besner¹

2022

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology / Revue canadienne

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“…In Experiment 1, Besner et al (2021) reported that the stimulus quality effect was the same size in both blocks. They inferred, therefore, that participants did not work on the target until the task cue was decoded and the task set was implemented.…”

Section: Intention and The Concept Of Task Setmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…The last variation of the task-switching paradigm again involves the task varying randomly from trial to trial, depending on the pretrial cues. Following Besner and Risko (2005), Besner et al (2021) provided university-level participants with a brief cue to make a response (Go)—to read aloud a single very high-frequency word—or to withhold the response (No-Go). The logic here was that the use of such high-frequency words should maximize the possibility of intention-free identification.…”

Section: Intention and The Concept Of Task Setmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the association between intention and visual word identification.

Besner,

MacLeod

2024

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology / Revue canadienne

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One of the most fundamental distinctions in cognitive psychology is between processing that is "controlled" and processing that is "automatic." The widely held automatic processing account of visual word identification asserts that, among other characteristics, the presentation of a well-formed letter string triggers sublexical, lexical, and semantic activation in the absence of any intention to do so. Instead, the role of intention is seen as independent of stimulus identification and as restricted to selection for action using the products of identification (e.g., braking in response to a sign saying "BRIDGE OUT"). We consider four paradigms with respect to the role of an intention-defined here as a "task set" indicating how to perform in the current situation-when identifying single well-formed letter strings. Contrary to the received automaticity view, the literature regarding each of these paradigms demonstrates that the relation between an intention and stimulus identification is constrained in multiple ways, many of which are not well understood at present. One thing is clear: There is no simple relation between an intention, in the form of a task set, and stimulus identification. Automatic processing of words, if this indeed ever occurs, certainly is not a system default. Public Significance StatementWith the extensive practice that readers have in processing words, many theorists argue that this skill becomes "automatic," in the sense of occurring necessarily and without intention. In this article, we argue that there is considerable evidence against the reading of individual words being "automatic" in that particular sense. In many situations, intention demonstrably matters. We examine several frequently studied tasks that involve single words (and nonwords, like "mantiness") and show that the context in which they occur is important for understanding how such stimuli are processed. The "task set" that people adopt-their approach to the particular situation-and when they adopt that set both play pivotal roles in how words are processed. Consequently, the concept of automaticity as typically defined is too broad to capture the many subtleties involved in the skill of visual word recognition.

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Intention and performance when reading aloud: Context is everything

Cited by 2 publications

References 20 publications

Visual word recognition: Attention, intention, context, and processing dynamics.

Visual word recognition: Attention, intention, context, and processing dynamics.

On the association between intention and visual word identification.

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