Response latency and accuracy in visual word recogniton

Abstract

In a single visual word recognition experiment, the effects of (11 eccentricity of presentation, (2)word length, and (3) word frequency were investigated. The stimuli used were Dutch nouns in two frequency classes of about 15 and 150.10-6 ; word length varied from 1 to 10; eccentricity varied from -4 to +4 deg. The response quality and response latency of 11 subjects were measured. For the correct responses, recognition scores decreased and response latencies increased with eccentricity; both showed asymmetrical curves in the visual field. It is argued that word length proper affects neither the probability of correct responses nor latency. A clear word frequency effect was established. The eccentricity of presentation is considered as the determinant of the amount of available information, thus directly influencing accuracy and latency. The linear relationship between accuracy and latency is a major finding. A word recognition scheme is offered which incorporates (1) activation, (2)decision, and (3) speech. The time relations between incoming retinal information and response decision, leading to an extra 400 msec for incorrect as compared with correct responses, are discussed. Word recognition in reading is examined, together with the impact of the present experimental results on information flow in successive eye fixations, eye movement control, and eye-voicespan.In the cognitive act of reading, several processes are involved: information is extracted from the text, processed, recognized, assigned a meaning, and, sometimes, uttered overtly. We are mainly interested in the visual reading processes, particularly in the cues for recognition. In printed text, words clearly form visual entities; in addition, words are emphasized in teaching people to read. We therefore work on the assumption that words are relevant units in visual reading processes.Both perceptual and linguistic factors contribute in word recognition (Neisser, 1967;Gibson & Levin, 1975). An important line of research at the Institute for Perception Research has been the specification of perceptual factors in single words in relation to the stimulus configuration (Bouma, 1971(Bouma, , 1973 Schiepers, 1976a Schiepers, , 1976bSchiepers, , 1978. The linguistic aspects of word recognition, on the other hand, are brought about the reader's knowledge of the language. Generally established linguistic factors affecting word recognition are, for example, word frequency (Broadbent, 1967;Rosenzweig & Postman, 1958), word meaning and redundancy by contrasting words vs. pseudowords vs. nonwords (Kolers, 1970;Wheeler, 1970), familiarity (Bouwhuis, 1979), and context (Morton, 1969). In our previous experiments (Schiepers, 1976b(Schiepers, , 1976c, word frequency and distributional constraints in the language were found to have only a minor influence. Probably, our experimental conditions, which imitate reading fixations as closely as possible, were responsible for a high transfer of stimulus information, thus giving prevalence to perceptual factors. In the exp...

Time Course of Linguistic Information Extraction From Consecutive Words During Eye Fixations in Reading.

“…Although summation of receptor activity improves the sensitivity to light, and probably to configurational information, it decreases visual acuity and thus hampers the acquisition of visual detail. Some delay in the use of linguistic information from the parafovea is thus expected on purely anatomical grounds (see Schiepers, 1980, for a similar view).It is also possible that acquisition of useful linguistic information from the parafovea requires the prior shifting of attention to it and that this explains why no useful information was extracted from the preview within the beginning 70 ms of a fixation. However, even if acquisition of useful linguistic information from a parafoveal target preview required the allocation of attention to it, it is not clear that such a shift of attention was delayed relative to the onset of a fixation.…”

Eye movements and identifying words in parafoveal vision

“…Thus, for example, the probability of correctly identifying a letter embedded in the middle of a trigram drops from 100% in the fovea to approximately 25% at 5 deg (Bouma, 1978). Likewise, the probability of correctly recognizing a word presented in the fovea is virtually 100%, but it drops to about 60% for words presented about 4 deg from ftxation (Bouma, 1973;Schiepers, 1980). Bouma (1973) argued that poorer acuity alone cannot account for the results obtained, and he suggested that visual interference of a masking type, predominantly acting toward the fovea, is responsible for the poorer performance with more eccentrically presented stimuli.…”

“…In experiments dealing more with perceptual than psychophysical functions, Bouma (1973Bouma ( , 1978 and Schiepers (1980) have demonstrated that the ability to identify a word from a l00-msec exposure or to identify a letter (either in isolation or within a word) decreases as the stimulus is presented farther from ftxation. Thus, for example, the probability of correctly identifying a letter embedded in the middle of a trigram drops from 100% in the fovea to approximately 25% at 5 deg (Bouma, 1978).…”

“…In addition, response time for correctly identifying a word presented at different eccentricities increases as the word is presented further from fIxation. The slope of this function has been variously determined as 90msec/deg (Schiepers, 1980) and 140 msec/deg (Bouma, 1978).…”

Eye Movement Control During Reading: Foveal Load and Parafoveal Processing

“…A parallel model that does not make this prediction was proposed by Schiepers (1980). Starting from the ®nding that it takes an average 90 msec per degree of eccentricity longer to identify a word (see also Rayner & Morrison, 1981), Schiepers hypothesized that the parafoveal word would be processed in parallel with the foveal word, but with a delay of about 200 msec (because it is typically situated at an eccentricity of 28 ).…”