Evidence from masked‐priming that initial identification of brand names is via abstract letter identities

Abstract

Although visual-word recognition is often assumed to proceed on the basis of caseinvariant letter representations, previous research has shown a role for letter-case in recognizing brand names. One recent study reported early effects of letter-case in a brand-decision task using masked primes (Perea et al., 2015, British Journal of Psychology, 106, 162). The present study attempts to replicate this finding using brand names typically presented in all lowercase (e.g., adidas), all uppercase (e.g., IKEA), or titlecase (e.g., Ford). Across three masked-priming experiments, we found no advantage for case-matched identity primes over case-mismatched identity primes. This finding suggests that brandspecific letter-case information does not play a role in the early processing of brand names. However, we observed evidence that case may be used as a cue for making brand decisions, which may explain the effect reported by Perea et al. (2015, British Journal of Psychology, 106, 162). ParticipantsSixty-three undergraduates participated in return for course credits. All had normal or corrected-to-normal vision and were native English speakers. 748 Nicholas Martin and Colin J. Davis ResultsPrior to analysis, we excluded participants who were excessively slow (>2.5 SD from the sample mean RT) or error-prone (accuracy below 75%). There was one participant who was error-prone and one participant who was much slower than the rest of the sample.Letter-case and brand name recognition 749

Are brand names special words? Letter visual‐similarity affects the identification of brand names, but not common words

“…However, none of the leading visual word recognition models currently addresses whether brand names are identified just as common words. One reason for this is that research on brand name identification has been extremely scarce (see Gontijo et al, 2002; Gontijo & Zhang, 2007; Martin & Davis, 2019; Perea et al, 2015, 2021, for exceptions). Thus, examining the similarities and differences between recognizing brand names and common words has important implications for a comprehensive visual‐word recognition model.…”

On recognizing Japanese katakana words: Explaining the reduced priming with hiragana and mixed-kana identity primes.

“…In a brand name decision task, for brand names tthat are usually written in the lowercase format (e.g., adidas), they reported that priming was reduced when the masked identity prime was in the unfamiliar format (ADIDAS-adidas) than in a familiar format (e.g., adidas-adidas) 4 . A more recent study by Martin and Davis (2019) did not replicate this specific result but found a main effect of prime case with participants responding fastest to all brands when preceded by identity primes presented in titlecase (e.g., Adidas-adidas, Audi-Audi, Honda-HONDA). The authors noted that their interpretation that participants exploit title case format to make brand name decisions is similar in many respects to the orthographic cue hypothesis proposed by Peressotti et al (2003).…”

“…4Martin et al (2019) noted that what Perea et al (2015) described as “brand names which are usually written in the lowercase format” in fact contained both brand names like adidas and brand names usually written in title case such as Ford, Audi, and Lipton.…”

Neurophysiological methods to study consumer perceptions of television advertising content

“…Однако проблема качества записи данных, связанная с техническими ограничениями оборудования и самих методов, а также с недостаточным развитием методологии интерпретации результатов, остается актуальной. Применение в нейромаркетинге замаскированного прайминга -новое направление не только для российской, но и для мировой науки [Martin, Davis, 2019].…”