Is there a lexicality component in the word superiority effect?

Abstract

Much attention has been lavished recently on word superiority effects in the hope that these phenomena can be made to yield information about the organization of skilled information processing in reading. In one important approach, an attempt is made to isolate and to specify those structural attributes of words that give rise to the advantage of words over random letter arrays that is found in various recognition tasks. A variety of positions have been taken on this question of the structural basis (or bases) of word superiority. We can usefully distinguish between those accounts that center upon lexicality, that is, the possession by a string of letters of an entry in a mental lexicon that is visually addressable, and those, on the other hand, that center upon the orthographic structuredness of a string. Orthographic factors can, in turn, be subdivided into visible structure, such as is represented by positional or sequential redundancy, and pronounceability. Adjudication between these positions is a matter of some theoretical importance, since it is reasonable to suppose that success in identifying the structural factors upon which word superiority depends would allow us to place strong constraints upon the possibilities in terms of underlying mechanisms.Since the studies of tachistoscopic report by Gibson, Pick, Osser, and Hammond (1962) and of samedifferent judgments by Barron and Pittenger (1974), it has become clear that some aspect of orthographic structures can act as a sufficient cause of word superiority, since nonlexical pseudowords show a performance advantage over unstructured letter strings. The question of whether lexicality (real words vs. pseudowords) also exerts an effect on performance evidently remains in dispute.

Orthography, familiarity, and meaningfulness reconsidered: Attentional strategies may affect the lexical sensitivity of visual code formation.

“…The strong main effect of stimulus type indicates that lexicality influences performance in addition to orthography; furthermore, it appears that the influence of lexicality may be more prominent under demanding visual conditions than it is under favorable conditions. This is consistent with Henderson's (1980) argument and with either of the two alternatives discussed in the introduction: increased lexical feedback into visual code formation or increased reliance on supplementary phonological receding under demanding conditions. However, as in much previous work (see Garret al, 1981, for a review), the interaction between stimulus type and response type indicates that lexicality can exert an influence on decision processes, and in this case, the statistical insignificance of the effect of stimulus type on different decisions makes it possible that such decision processes account for the entirety of lexicality's influence on performance.…”

What does the visual system know about words?

“…We would like to discuss several points raised by Henderson (1980) about lexicality effects in word perception and, in the process, address some broader issues concerning theory and method in the study of perceptual encoding mechanisms. We have argued previously (Carr.…”

“…This difference in focus is obvious in the introductions to our respective papers. Henderson (1980) opens with a discussion of the word superiority effect and whether lexicality produces an advantage over and above that produced by orthographic regularity in any of the tasks commonly used in this area of research. Carr et al (1979) open with a discussion of rule-governed vs. stimulus-specific processing mechanisms and whether the effects of those two kinds of mechanisms can be isolated in visual, phonological, or semantic encoding systems.…”

Word-superiority effect as a function of semantic transparency of Chinese bimorphemic compound words

“…The emergence of a word-superiority effect in the ReicherÁWheeler paradigm was taken to indicate that the word is a unitised perceptual unit that has a corresponding whole-word lexical entry that can be visually addressed (Henderson, 1980). There is general consensus that, for an alphabetic script, facilitation of letter recognition in the context of a word derives from the additional activation from a corresponding wholeword lexical entry, as compared to letter recognition in the context of a non-word (e.g., McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981;Paap, Newsome, McDonald, & Schvaneveldt, 1982).…”