Letter and word code interactions elicited by normally displayed words

Lawry, Janice A.; LaBerge, David

doi:10.3758/bf03206138

Cited by 9 publications

(7 citation statements)

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“…Interestingly, the word superiority effect was explained in a manner similar to the prefigural account of figure-ground organization. Lawry and LaBerge (1981) proposed that word-level information was processed in parallel with or before letter information. This "prelexical" account suggested that word-level information might be bootstrapped from letter-feature information (i.e., edges and line segments), not from letter information itself.…”

Section: Toward a Grain Account Of Visual Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Figure-ground organization and object recognition processes: An interactive account.

Vecera¹,

O’Reilly²

1998

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

159

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Traditional bottom-up models of visual processing assume that figure-ground organization precedes object recognition. This assumption seems logically necessary: How can object recognition occur before a region is labeled as figure? However, some behavioral studies find that familiar regions are more likely to be labeled figure than less familiar regions, a -problematic finding for bottom-up models. An interactive account is proposed in which figure-ground processes receive top-down input from object representations in a hierarchical system. A graded, interactive computational model is presented that accounts for behavioral results in which familiarity effects are found. The interactive model offers an alternative conception of visual processing to bottom-up models.In a typical visual scene multiple objects partially occlude one another, which makes object recognition a computationally complex task. Traditional information-processing theories of visual perception have suggested that prior to object representation and recognition, an earlier stage of perceptual organization occurs to determine which features, locations, or surfaces most likely belong together (for examples, see Biederman, 1987;Kosslyn, 1987;Marr, 1982;Neisser, 1967;Palmer & Rock, 1994a). Such a hierarchical organization of processing seems to be logically required (Palmer & Rock, 1994b): For object recognition to occur, an object representation must receive inputs from features or regions of the visual field that correspond to the object that is to be recognized. Inputs from any other feature or region of the visual field are spurious and presumably make object recognition more difficult.One particular aspect of perceptual organization that the visual system needs to determine is which regions in the visual field are figures and which regions are backgrounds. Only figural regions should be given as input to object representations. The study of figure-ground organization Shaun P. Vecera, Department of Psychology, University of Utah; Randall C. O'Reilly, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University.Randall C. O'Reilly is now at the Department of Psychology, University of Colorado at Boulder.This research was supported in part by the Neural Processes in Cognition Program (National Science Foundation Award BIR 9014347) and by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Training Grant 2T32 MH19102-06. This work was also supported by NIMH Grant MH47566.We wish to thank Martha Farah, Ken Kotovsky, Jay McClelland, Mary Peterson, Dennis Proffitt, and Rich Zemel for discussion and comments on this work.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Shaun P. Vecera, Department of Psychology, 390 S. 1530 E. Room 502, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112. Electronic mall may be sent to Shaun.Vecera@m.cc.utah.edu. began slightly after the beginning of the century by the Gestalt psychologists, most notably Rubin. The work of these psychologists, as well as of more modern theorists, suggests that there are certain "rules" that the ...

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Section: Toward a Grain Account Of Visual Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Figure-ground organization and object recognition processes: An interactive account.

Vecera¹,

O’Reilly²

1998

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

159

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Due to the subjects' experiences in reading, scanning across the array in this manner may have induced them to attempt to encode the entire letter string holistically. A substantial amount of evidence has accumulated to suggest that letter strings that constitute words can be encoded holistically without the preliminary identification of each letter in the string (Jacewicz, 1979;Johnson & Marmurek, 1978;Lawry & Laberge, 1981;McClelland, 1979) Purcell, Stanovich, and Spector (1978) found a WSE using A_E as word strings and V_H as unrelated letter strings, with C, G, P, and R as possible targets in the middle position. However, Paap and Newsome (1980a) placed selected digits (3, 6, 8, or 9) between the same sets of flanking letters and found significantly lower performance with the V and H flankers, leading them to conclude that the original effect was due to differential lateral masking.…”

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confidence: 99%

Scanning, holistic encoding, and the word-superiority effect

Chastain

1982

Memory & Cognition

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The role of holistic encoding induced by scanning in the superior identifiability target letters in orthographic strings (words) enjoy over those in strings of unrelated letters was examined in two experiments. Both the set of potential targets and the critical position in the letter arrays were predesignated. One group in each experiment was induced to scan each array from left to right in a dot-counting task. A dot could precede the array to its left and/or appear with the array to its right. Only this group displayed the word superiority. For the second group in the first experiment, any dot(s) present always appeared with the array. The second group in the second experiment was shown no dots but, rather, performed the letter-identification task only.The absence of a word-superiority effect in other studies is related to holistic encoding stemming from scanning requirements, and the implications for positional uncertainty explanations of the phenomenon are discussed.

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“…Since reversing the order of letters has been found to induce letter-by-letter analysis (Lawry & LaBerge, 1981), a WSE with the NR strings suggests that serial analysis of the positions in a string allows a WSE to emerge. Its absence with the RN and RR strings suggests that normal letter orientation is necessary to allow serial tests at the positions to proceed in a manner conducive to a WSE.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Finally, Lawry and LaBerge (1981) measured response latency to perform a lexical decision task on lowercase letter strings embodying each of the four combinations of orientation and order used in Experiment 1. Before each string was presented, a priming stimulus appeared.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Terry, Samuels, and LaBerge (1976) found that presenting mirror-image words produced a positive relationship between word length and response latency in a categorization task, and Lawry and LaBerge (1981) observed increases in response latency to transformed strings in a lexical decision task. Lawry and LaBerge also found that presenting mirror-image strings, strings in which the letters were normally oriented but were reversed in their order, or were normally ordered but were reversed in their orientation, each resulted in performance suggesting serial analysis.…”

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Directional letter-by-letter analysis and the word-superiority effect

Chastain

1984

Memory & Cognition

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Manipulations were introduced in three experiments to produce letter-by-letter analysis of orthographic (CVC) and nonorthographic (CCV or VCC) trigrams. Letters in the trigrams were presented in a different form (normal orientation and order, normal orientation but reversed order, reversed orientation but normal order, or reversed orientation and order) to each of four groups in the first experiment, and in each of the two normal orientation forms to different groups in the second experiment. Subjects both detected the presence or absence of a target letter and classified each trigram as a word or nonword. Additional changes were introduced in the third experiment to ensure that letters were being analyzed in the desired order. Performance was consistently better on orthographic trigrams, but only if the letters were oriented normally. This word-superiority effect (WSE) was related to feature testing that may be carried out letter by letter, with more efficient testing on words. Familiar orientation of letter features seems to be necessary; otherwise, testing becomes so difficult that there is no WSE. However, testing apparently is not finished on a given letter before it is begun on the next. 195A letter from a small predesignated set can be identified correctly more often if it appears in a letter string that forms a word than if it appears in a string of randomly chosen letters (Carr, Lehmkuhle, Kottas, AstorStetson, & Arnold, 1976;Chastain, 1981;Paap & Newsome, 1980b;Spector & Purcell, 1977). Questions persist about the nature of the processes that result in this word-superiority effect (WSE). One issue is whether the positions in the string must be simultaneously analyzed for the WSE to appear (Adams, 1979). Johnston (1981) and Johnston and McClelland (1974) found that the advantage produced by the word context is eliminated if the position of the target is known in advance of the appearance of the string. Apparently, the other letters are not analyzed with the target, if at all. Some investigators have attempted to encourage serial analysis of the positions in the string by using wide interletter spacing. This manipulation has been found to eliminate the WSE (Purcell & Stanovich, 1982;Purcell, Stanovich, & Spector, 1978; but see Paap & Newsome, 1980a), but perhaps again because it discourages analysis of all the letters presented. Finally, Travers (1975) found that serial presentation of letters in the string is more detrimental to letter identification in words than in nonwords. However, although no statistical analysis was reported, a weak WSE still seems to be present in those data. A WSE defmitely appeared in a sequential presentation study reported by Krueger (1971), but since noThe author would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions on an earlier draft of this article. Requests for reprints should be addressed to Garvin Chastain, Department of Psychology, Boise State University, Boise, ID 83725. masks were used, it is difficult to relate this to a typical WSE, which req...

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Letter and word code interactions elicited by normally displayed words

Cited by 9 publications

References 22 publications

Figure-ground organization and object recognition processes: An interactive account.

Figure-ground organization and object recognition processes: An interactive account.

Scanning, holistic encoding, and the word-superiority effect

Directional letter-by-letter analysis and the word-superiority effect

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