On visual access to letter case and lexical/semantic information

Abstract

Four experiments were designed to investigate automatic processing of letter case and lexical/semantic information under forward and backward masking conditions that disallowed a visible image. Stimulus displays were letter string pairs; the letter case for each pair matched or mismatched, and the relationship between the two strings within pairs varied. Experiment 1 required direct Same-Different responses to stimulus pairs, and the results indicate that tasks requiring direct responses to stimulus inputs cannot distinguish between conscious response biases and unconscious use of information. Experiments 2 and 3 employed an indirect index of automatic prerecognition analyses of verbal-linguistic parameters and showed that, with 30-msec pre-and postmasked presentations, letter case, orthographic regularity, and lexical/semantic information are all analyzed in unconscious operations. Experiment 4 demonstrated that, under the viewing conditions of Experiments 2 and 3, subjects had no awareness of the stimulus input.Results of several recent studies indicate that subjects access the meaning of words under central masking conditions that deny a visible image of letters in a display (e.g., Balota, 1983;Fowler, Wolford, Slade, & Tassinary, 1981;Friedman, 1980;Huber & Johnson, 1980;Marcel, 1980 Marcel, , 1983bMarcel & Patterson, 1978). Unless these results can be shown to be artifactual and/or fail to gain converging support from other methods for studying the earliest operations of visual processing, they have important implications for theoretical accounts of (1) the means by which semantic access occurs, (2) the function performed by central pattern masking, and (3) the distinction between visual, but not visible, operations and the outcomes of those operations that constitute current perceptual awareness.Direct and indirect measures of processing have provided at least partial converging evidence of prerecognition semantic access. Fowler et al. (1981), Friedman (1980, Huber andJohnson (1980), and Marcel (1983b;Marcel & Patterson, 1978) used procedures that required direct responses to stimulus inputs. Marcel's (1983b;Marcel & Patterson, 1978) data are the most surprising and counterintuitive. When he determined the longest onset asynchrony between a stimulus and a following pattern mask (SOA) at which subjects made chance-level judgments (defined as .60 probability of correct response), Portions of these data were reported at the meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, May, 1983. The authors express appreciation to Paul Koch, Chris Conzemius, and Angela Hemmer for assistance in conducting the experiments, and to Roberta Klatzky, David Balota, and three anonymous reviewers for critical comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Address reprint requests to L L Avant, Department of Psychology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011.Marcel found that the SOA for judgments of semantic similarity between a masked word and two unmasked words was lower than that for judgments of form similarity betw...

Duration Ratings as an Index of Processing Resources Required for Cognitive Tasks

“…Low-frequency words thus seem to appear for a shorter duration than high-frequency words. These results occur with exposure durations sufficient to allow the identification of the words; with much shorter, or with pattern-masked, exposures, the results are not invariably the same (Avant & Lyman, 1975;Avant & Theiman, 1985) and may reflect very early processing factors. Hochhaus et al (1991) used a Likert-type scale of I to 4, with 1 = shortest judged duration and 4 = longest.…”

Semantic priming, prime reportability, and retroactive priming are interdependent

“…Semantic priming is a measuring instrument that influences what it is measuring. Some other kind of indirect measurement is needed if the semantic properties of early automatic encoding are to be explored (e.g., Avant & Thieman, 1985).…”

Using direct and indirect measures to study perception without awareness

“…Duration as an Indirect Measure Given the proposed methodological criteria, there are certain limitations as to the direct and indirect measures that can be used successfully to investigate the relation between consciousness and perception. However, a recent series of experiments reported by Avant and Thieman (1985) suggests a possible approach. These investigators claimed to have demonstrated that judgments of apparent visual duration provide an indirect measure of perceptual processing that is more sensitive to the lexical status of a visual stimulus than are direct discriminative responses.…”

“…The only assumption required by the proposed approach is that the sensitivity of direct discriminations to relevant conscious information is greater than or equal to the sensitivity of comparable indirect discriminations. The proposed approach is illustrated through an evaluation of Avant and Thieman's (1985) recent claim that an indirect measure of perception based on judgments of apparent visual duration provides a more sensitive indicator of perception than does a direct measure based on forced-choice recognition. Contrary to this claim, when direct and indirect indexes are measured under comparable conditions, an indirect measure based on judgments of perceived duration provides a less sensitive index of perceptual processing than do comparable direct measures.…”

“…In addition, we outline an ideal set of methodological criteria that should be satisfied when comparisons between direct and indirect measures are made. Finally, we illustrate the proposed approach by evaluating a recent claim by Avant and Thieman (1985) that judgments of apparent visual duration provide a sensitive indirect measure of unconscious perception.…”