The use of intra-word contextual constraint in letter identification

Abstract

Abstract In this experiment subjects were asked to report the identity of a position-cued critical letter in a linear array of four letters. There were tour types of arrays used: (a) unpronounceable non-words; (b) pronounceable non-words; (c) words in which the critical letter was minimally constrained by the context letters; and (d) words in which the critical letter was maximally constrained by the context letters. A different group of subjects was assigned to each of these array conditions. All four-letter stimuli were presented in two parts: A leading array in which the information from two quadrants of a vertical by horizontal division of each letter was presented, and, after intervals of 120 and 160 msec, a trailing array of the complementary letter parts. However, the most important manipulation in the study was the presence or absence of the critical letter. On a random half of the experimental trials the cue specified an empty location and the subject was forced to “guess” the identity of the mis...