Visual letter-matching and the time course of visual and acoustic codes

The involvement of letter names in the silent processing of isolated letters: A developmental perspective

“…Assuming that letter names continue to play a central role in mediating the processing of letters even among proficient readers therefore makes sense (Dainoff, 1970;Dainoff & Haber, 1970;Posner & Mitchell, 1967;Proctor, 1981;Treiman et al, 2001). Interestingly, much previous evidence has seemed to contest this assumption (Arguin & Bub, 1995;Boles & Eveland, 1983;Carrasco et al, 1988;Kinoshita & Kaplan, 2008;Raynard & Besner, 1987). The method used in the present study allowed for a direct corroboration of the involvement of letter names in the processing of isolated letters by comparing the processing of monosyllabic and bisyllabic dyads.…”

“…Interestingly, evidence from a series of studies conducted since the early 1980s has seemed to challenge this assumption. Carrasco, Kinchla, and Figueroa (1988) replicated both the Posner and Mitchell (1967) and the Thorson et al (1976) studies with a sample of English-and Spanish-speaking university students. As expected, it took less time to determine that two physically identical letters (e.g., a a, A A) were the same than it took for two merely name-identical letters (A a).…”

“…As stated earlier, several potential candidates can take on a mediating function in the processing of isolated letters, such as abstract visual (e.g., Mycroft et al, 2002;Posner & Mitchell, 1967), abstract phonological (e.g., Carrasco et al, 1988), abstract nominal (e.g., Posner & Mitchell, 1967), and/or abstract non-code-specific (e.g., Kinoshita & Kaplan, 2008;Miozzo & Caramazza, 1998) representations, each of which has received some support in the literature. On the other hand, teachers and parents tend to refer to letters in a nominal way as they introduce them to their "novice readers/writers" (Levin & Aram, 2004;Treiman & Rodriguez, 1999;Treiman et al, 2001), with preschoolers being more acquainted with letter names than with their sounds (Levin, Shatil-Carmon, & Asif-Rave, 2005).…”

“…Several possible forms of mental representations (categories) have been suggested in the literature as underlying the processing of isolated letters: (1) abstract visual representations that depict the critical visual features of letters (e.g., Mycroft et al, 2002;Posner & Mitchell, 1967); (2) abstract phonemic representations that represent the critical phonological characteristics of how letters are pronounced (e.g., Carrasco et al, 1988); (3) abstract nominal representations-that is, letter names (e.g., Posner & Mitchell, 1967); and (4) abstract non-code-specific representations that reflect the convention that two different letter shapes (e.g., A a) are the same letter (e.g., Kinoshita & Kaplan, 2008;Miozzo & Caramazza, 1998). In order to contribute to a better understanding of how isolated letters are processed, we tested several hypotheses:…”

Letter Visibility and the Optimal Viewing Position Effect of Isolated Connected and Un-Connected Letters in Arabic

“…Several possible forms of mental representations (categories) have been suggested in the literature as underlying the processing of isolated lett ers (Miller & Vaknin, 2012): (1) abstract visual representations that depict the critical visual features of lett ers (e.g., Mycroft et al, 2002;Posner & Mitchell, 1967); (2) abstract phonemic representations that represent the critical phonological characteristics of how lett ers are pronounced (e.g., Carrasco et al, 1988); (3) abstract nominal Unauthenticated Download Date | 5/10/18 4:59 PM representations that is, lett er names (e.g., Posner & Mitchell, 1967); and (4) abstract non-code-specifi c representations that refl ect the convention that two diff erent lett er shapes (e.g., A a) are the same lett er (e.g., Kinoshita & Kaplan, 2008;Miozzo & Caramazza, 1998). It is worth mentioning that in the Arabic alphabet, the words for the diff erent lett ers have similar voice onsets.…”