Is there a cost at encoding words with joined letters during visual word recognition?

Abstract

For simplicity, models of visual-word recognition have focused on printed words composed of separated letters, thus overlooking the processing of cursive words. Manso de Zuniga, Humphreys, and Evett (1991) claimed that there is an early “cursive normalization” encoding stage when processing written words with joined letters. To test this claim, we conducted a lexical decision experiment in which words were presented either with separated or joined letters. To examine if the cost of letter segmentation occurs early in processing, we also manipulated a factor (i.e., word-frequency) that is posited to affect subsequent lexical processing. Results showed faster response times for the words composed of separated letters than for the words composed of joined letters. This effect occurred similarly for low- and high-frequency words. Thus, the present data offer some empirical support to Manso de Zuniga et al.’s (1991) idea of an early “cursive normalization” stage when processing joined-letters words. This pattern of data can be used to constrain the mapping of the visual input into letter and word units in future versions of models of visual word recognition.

Letter connectedness and Arabic visual word recognition

“…One possibility is that it relates to a general processing cost for words written in connected letters—that is, a cost that applies regardless of the language/orthography. As discussed above, similar processing difficulty has also been found for Spanish words written in connected cursive script (Roldán et al, 2018). Furthermore, in line with the comparable letter connectedness effects for Arabic words and nonwords reported above, this effect in Spanish applied essentially equally to both high- and low-frequency words.…”

“…The lack of clear processing costs for letter connectedness on word-level reading in Arabic is also somewhat surprising in light of effects along these lines in other languages. For example, a lexical decision experiment in Spanish found a small, but reliable effect indicating that words written in connected (cursive) letters were processed more slowly than those written in the same font, but in unconnected letters (Roldán et al, 2018). Interestingly, this effect applied essentially equally to both high- and low-frequency words, suggesting that letter connectedness primarily influences prelexical orthographic processing (see the “General Discussion” section for more on these results).…”