On the nonautomaticity of visual word processing: Electrophysiological evidence that word processing requires central attention.

Lien, Mei-Ching; Ruthruff, Eric; Cornett, Logan; Goodin, Zachary; Allen, Philip A.

doi:10.1037/0096-1523.34.3.751

Cited by 34 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…The modulation of the P3 amplitude by word frequency replicated the findings of Polich and Donchin (1988) and Lien et al (2008). These findings suggest that, when words are presented only once, the word frequency effect emerges at a later, stimulus categorization stage.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

“…We addressed this issue by employing ERP measures in an LDT in which we manipulated word frequency and case mixing using specific "time stamps": the relatively early N170 (an index of structural encoding) and the relatively late P3 (an index of stimulus categorization). It should be noted that although some studies have utilized the ERP approach (e.g., Donchin et al, 1978;Lien et al, 2008;Nasman & Rosenfeld, 1990;Polich & Donchin, 1988), they focused primarily on word frequency, but not on its interaction with case mixing, as in the present study. Consistent with earlier reports, the RT data revealed word frequency (67 ms) and case-mixing (50 ms) effects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

“…5) LDT study. & Allen, 2008). Acosta and Nasman (1992) also found that the P3 amplitude was modulated by within-experiment repetition of words in discrimination tasks, but not in detection tasks.…”

Section: An Electrophysiological Measure Of Word Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We measured the mean amplitude of the N170 from 140 to 240 ms after stimulus onset, relative to the 200-ms baseline period before stimulus onset. The second analysis focused on the P3, using electrodes Cz and Pz (e.g., Lien et al, 2008;Luck, 1998). The mean amplitude of the P3 was measured from 400 to 600 ms after stimulus onset, relative to the 200-ms baseline period before stimulus onset.…”

Section: Apparatus Stimuli and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Electrophysiological evidence of different loci for case-mixing and word frequency effects in visual word recognition

2012

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Besner & McCann, 1987). To determine the locus of the word frequency and case-mixing effects, we manipulated word frequency (high vs. low) and case type (consistent lower case vs. mixing case) in a lexical-decision paradigm. We measured two event-related-potential components: the N170 (an early peak occurring 140-240 ms after stimulus onset, related to structural encoding) and the P3 (a late peak occurring 400-600 ms after stimulus onset, related to stimulus categorization). The critical finding was that the N170 amplitude was sensitive to case mixing, but the P3 amplitude was sensitive to word frequency and lexicality. These results suggest that case mixing affects an earlier processing stage than does word frequency, at least with respect to lexical-decision processes.Keywords Visual word recognition . Event-related potentials . Case mixing . Word frequencyThe question of how we process words during reading has generated an extensive literature, probably because reading is such a frequent activity. One fruitful approach to studying reading and word recognition is to examine how characteristics of the word affect recognition using a lexical-decision task (LDT; i.e., determining whether a letter string forms a word or a nonword). Two of the commonly used manipulations of words are case mixing (e.g., mixed case [TeNnIs] vs. consistent lower case [tennis]) and word frequency (the frequency with which a word occurs in the language). Studies with a case-mixing manipulation have consistently revealed shorter response times (RTs) for consistent lowercase than for mixed-case words (the case-mixing effect). Studies with a word frequency manipulation have revealed shorter RTs for high-than for low-frequency words (the word frequency effect).

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 75%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 79%

Section: An Electrophysiological Measure Of Word Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Apparatus Stimuli and Proceduresmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Electrophysiological evidence of different loci for case-mixing and word frequency effects in visual word recognition

2012

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“…Participants simply indicated whether each word did or did not belong to a prespecified category (following Lien, Ruthruff, Cornett, Goodin, & Allen, 2008). One motivation for using a categorization paradigm is that it makes it easy to manipulate stimulus frequency (and expectation) by reducing the numbers of categories and the number of words per category.…”

Section: The Present Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

Even frequent and expected words are not identified without spatial attention

Lien

Ruthruff

Kouchi

et al. 2010

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics

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Can visual objects be identified without spatial attention? For example, could a driver attending to another car interpret a passing road sign? This question has generated a large literature, in large part because it is central to how we characterize human visual attention (e.g., whether visual information processing is serial or parallel). The present study examined how spatial attention affects the semantic activation of words. In particular, we examined whether increasing the expectation for specific words within a given context, by repeating a small set of target words, would enable word processing in the absence of spatial attention. The computations involved in word recognition could potentially become much simpler when the set of possible words is greatly reduced, so it is plausible that word recognition would become more automatic and not require spatial attention. Spatial Attention in Word ProcessingThe role of spatial attention in word processing has long been a contentious issue (see Neely & Kahan, 2001, for a review). Most studies have used some variant of a priming paradigm. In a typical paradigm, a word (which we will refer to as the prime) that requires no response is presented simultaneously with, or immediately preceding, a target word to which a speeded response is made. In such studies it is well documented that, when the prime is attended, participants respond faster to related targets than to unrelated targets. In the lexical decision task (word vs. nonword), for instance, participants are faster to indicate that the target is a word (e.g., butter) when an attended prime is a related word (e.g., bread ) rather than an unrelated word (e.g., nurse; e.g., Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1971; see Neely, 1991, for a review of associative priming effects). Similarly, people are slower to name the color of a bar if the name of a different color is printed nearby (the Stroop effect; e.g., Stroop, 1935; see MacLeod, 1991, for a review).In most of the studies described above, the prime was presented in an attended location, even though the prime itself did not require a response. Priming effects have proven to be less consistent when attention is not directed to the prime. Some studies have suggested that spatial attention plays little or no role in semantic activation during word processing (e.g., Brown, Gore, & Carr, 973© 2010 The Psychonomic Society, Inc. Previous studies have disagreed about the extent to which people extract meaning from words presented outside the focus of spatial attention. The present study examined a possible explanation for such discrepancies inspired by attenuation theory: Unattended words can be read more automatically when they are expected within a given context (e.g., due to frequent repetition). We presented a brief prime word in lowercase, followed by a target word in uppercase. Participants indicated whether the target word belonged to a particular category (e.g., "sports"). When we used a visual cue to draw attention to the location of the prime word, it produced substantia...

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Parallel and serial task processing in the PRP paradigm: a drift–diffusion model approach

Mattes

Tavera

Ophey

et al. 2020

Psychological Research

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Even after a long time of research on dual-tasking, the question whether the two tasks are always processed serially (response selection bottleneck models, RSB) or also in parallel (capacity-sharing models) is still going on. The first models postulate that the central processing stages of two tasks cannot overlap, producing a central processing bottleneck in Task 2. The second class of models posits that cognitive resources are shared between the central processing stages of two tasks, allowing for parallel processing. In a series of three experiments, we aimed at inducing parallel vs. serial processing by manipulating the relative frequency of short vs. long SOAs (Experiments 1 and 2) and including no-go trials in Task 2 (Experiment 3). Beyond the conventional response time (RT) analyses, we employed drift-diffusion model analyses to differentiate between parallel and serial processing. Even though our findings were rather consistent across the three experiments, they neither support unambiguously the assumptions derived from the RSB model nor those derived from capacity-sharing models. SOA frequency might lead to an adaptation to frequent time patterns. Overall, our diffusion model results and mean RTs seem to be better explained by participant's time expectancies.

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On the nonautomaticity of visual word processing: Electrophysiological evidence that word processing requires central attention.

Cited by 34 publications

References 67 publications

Electrophysiological evidence of different loci for case-mixing and word frequency effects in visual word recognition

Electrophysiological evidence of different loci for case-mixing and word frequency effects in visual word recognition

Even frequent and expected words are not identified without spatial attention

Parallel and serial task processing in the PRP paradigm: a drift–diffusion model approach

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