ERIC Number: EJ1178407
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2018-May
Pages: 8
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0278-7393
EISSN: N/A
Can I Order a Burger at rnacdonalds.com? Visual Similarity Effects of Multi-Letter Combinations at the Early Stages of Word Recognition
Marcet, Ana; Perea, Manuel
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, v44 n5 p699-706 May 2018
Previous research has shown that early in the word recognition process, there is some degree of uncertainty concerning letter identity and letter position. Here, we examined whether this uncertainty also extends to the mapping of letter features onto letters, as predicted by the Bayesian Reader (Norris & Kinoshita, 2012). Indeed, anecdotal evidence suggests that nonwords containing multi-letter homoglyphs (e.g., rn[right arrow] m), such as "docurnent," can be confusable with their base word. We conducted 2 masked priming lexical decision experiments in which the words/nonwords contained a middle letter that was visually similar to a multi-letter homoglyph (e.g., "docurnent" [rn-m], "presiclent" [cl-d]). Three types of primes were employed: identity, multi-letter homoglyph, and orthographic control. We used 2 commonly used fonts: Tahoma in Experiment 1 and Calibri in Experiment 2. Results in both experiments showed faster word identification times in the homoglyph condition than in the control condition (e.g., "docurnento"--"DOCUMENTO" faster than "docusnento"--"DOCUMENTO"). Furthermore, the homoglyph condition produced nearly the same latencies as the identity condition. These findings have important implications not only at a theoretical level (models of printed word recognition) but also at an applied level (Internet administrators/users).
Descriptors: Word Recognition, Priming, Cognitive Processes, Visual Perception, Orthographic Symbols, Stimuli, Word Processing, Foreign Countries, Undergraduate Students, Models, Spanish, Reading Skills
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Spain (Valencia)
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A