Tachistoscopic Word Recognition Research Articles

Comparison of deficits in cognitive and motor skills among children with dyslexia

There is a growing body of evidence that children with dyslexia have problems not just in reading but in a range of skills including several unrelated to reading. In an attempt to compare the severity and incidence of deficits across these varied domains, children with dyslexia (mean ages 8, 12, and 16 years), and control groups of normally achieving children matched for IQ and for age or reading age, were tested on a range of primitive (basic) skills. The children with dyslexia performed significantly worse than the same-age controls on most tasks, and significantly worse even than the reading-age controls on phoneme segmentation, picture naming speed, word tachistoscopic word recognition, speeded bead threading and some balance tasks. The overall performance of the children with dyslexia is interpreted as showing less complete automatization than normal.

Motivational influences on word recognition: I. Foveal and parafoveal viewing

The effects of motivation (hunger vs. satiation) on tachistoscopic word recognition were investigated. Overall procedures were identical for foveal viewing (Experiment 1) and parafoveal viewing (Experiment 2). Results with foveal viewing confirmed earlier findings (Ferguson, 1983) that hunger facilitated word recognition and no need-relevance effects were evident. Under foveal viewing, words were recognized significantly earlier under conditions of hunger, but overt responding was not significantly faster. Under parafoveal viewing, no significant motivation effects occurred. It is possible that different processing mechanisms operate under parafoveal and foveal viewing conditions.

Asymmetries in tachistoscopic word recognition: scanning effects re-examined.

To investigate the role of scanning biases in visual half field studies, native readers of Hindi (a language written and read from left-to-right) and Urdu (a language written and read from right to left) were tested in a language analogue of the Stroop paradigm. Subjects had to identify the script (Hindi vs. Urdu) in which the words referring to the two languages Hindi and Urdu were presented. Greater RVF than LVF interference was obtained in both groups, indicating a left hemisphere specialization for lexical functioning independent of scanning biases.

Sex in lateralized tachistoscopic word recognition

Although a generalized sex difference in lateralization appears to be established, a review of the literature pertaining to lexical tachistoscopic tasks suggests a dissociation by method: females show reduced visual field asymmetries relative to males in lexical decision and naming, but not in word recognition. Here 14 recognition experiments from the author's laboratory are subjected to meta-analysis, and the literature review is confirmed. There is no sex difference is visual field asymmetry for the task, although an overall field difference is found and statistical power is high to find the interaction. Possible reasons for the discrepancy with lexical decision and naming findings are discussed. One possibility is that stress on reaction time in those tasks produces a complex interaction between sex, activation/arousal, and hemispheric differences, which is not found when a less speeded method is used.

Cross Modality Facilitation in Tachistoscopic Word Recognition

In its old form, the logogen model (Morton, 1969) would have predicted extensive cross-model facilitation of tachistoscopic word recognition. An experiment by Winnick and Daniel (1970) violated this prediction by showing no effects on subsequent visual word recognition of naming a picture or filling a definition. The latter results was replicated, and it was also found that pretraining with handwritten words transferred to printed words from 10-45 min later. A further experiment showed no significant transfer from auditory presentation to subsequent visual recognition. A third experiment, designed to minimize the role of conscious guessing strategies showed a significant cross-model transfer. The logogen model was modified substantially in the light of these data. There are now seen to be modality specific input categorization systems which are separate from the output lexicon and which are identified as the site of facilitation in the experiments.

Interpersonal trust and perceptual vigilance for trustworthiness descriptors

The effect of interpersonal trust on perceptual vigilance was examined in a tachistoscopic word recognition study. High and low trust subjects were presented personality descriptors varying specifically in their connotations of trust-worthiness. As hypothesized, low trusters had lower recognition thresholds (i.e. were more vigilant) for connotatively negative words than for either positive or neutral words, while high trusters had relatively constant thresholds. Further-more, low trusters were more vigilant than high trusters only for negative words. A manipulation intended to arouse subjects' suspicions about the experimenter was also examined. Subjects in the suspicion condition reviewed negative information about the experimenter's trustworthiness, while those in the control condition reviewed neutral information. Contrary to hypothesis, among low trusters the suspicion subjects had higher thresholds for all word groups than controls. Among high trusters, there were no condition effects. The results are interpreted, and their implications are considered.

Perception of memorized works and nonwords.

In this experiment we tried to explain why a word is perceived more accurately than a nonword. We compared the accuracy of the tachistoscopic recognition of words with memorized words and of nonwords with memorized nonwords. We used the method of the critical interstimulus interval (Turvey, 1973). The results showed that the over-all performance was better in the word conditions than in the nonword conditions, but the influence of the memorizing factor was virtually nonexistent. This is in contradiction with two proposed hypotheses, the "feature redundancy theory" because the memorizing factor was not significant and Massaro's (1973) assumptions that the difference between words and nonwords is due to redundancy. Although words and nonwords were equated for redundancy, there remained a difference in processing time. Words and nonwords seem to be processed in essentially different ways. The word advantage seems to be dependent upon the subjects' strategy to consider the presented words as a whole.

Phonological encoding in visual word recognition

Three experiments use a tachistoscopic word recognition task to investigate how skilled readers convert visual input into a speech-related, or phonological code during reading. A specific model of phonological encoding (Spoehr & Smith, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 1975, 1, 21–34) is elaborated to provide the prediction that tachistoscopic report accuracy should be an inverse function of the length of the phonological code generated in processing the stimulus. Experiment I confirms the predicted phoneme-length effect while Experiment II shows that increases in syllable- and in phoneme-length both reduce report accuracy. Experiment III demonstrates that subjects' use of phonological encoding may change with varying reading conditions. The results of all three experiments are discussed in relation to specific models of reading.

Form Class as a Perceptual Set

In 1972, Roydes and Osgood studied the tachistoscopic recognition of words that can be used as either nouns or verbs and found an interaction of predominant form class by set to perceive a given form class. Three experiments were done to test the generality of that finding. At luminances appropriate for reading (7 and 32 mlam), no such interaction was found, either with Roydes and Osgood's words (regardless of whether the subjects' instructions were to guess or to report accurately) or with two new lists of words that can belong to either form class.

Recall of letters from the left and right visual half-fields under unilater and bilateral presentation.

Bilateral presentation in the visual half-field greatly increases superiority of the right visual half-field in tachistoscopic recognition of words when fixation is controlled using a center digit. Two experiments explored left-right asymmetry with bilateral presentation on a visual half-field short-term memory task, with fixation controlled by a sequence of letters at fixation. A total of 40 subjects served in the two experiments, which compared recall under unilateral versus bilateral presentation to the visual half-field. Bilateral presentation increased over-all recall from the last serial position but did not alter asymmetry of the visual half-field. As in previous experiments, the superiority of the right visual half-field was greatest from the initial serial positions. It was concluded that asymmetry of the visual half-field on this recall task with controlled fixation depends primarily on masking and short-term memory but is independent of unilateral-bilateral presentation.

Tachistoscopic Word Recognition as a Function of Word Abstractness/Concreteness, Word Frequency, and IQ

Tachistoscopic word-recognition thresholds for abstract and concrete words of high and low frequency of occurrence were measured for 15 college subjects of high and 15 of low IQ to determine if word abstractness/concreteness is a significant one among these variables. Results refuted previous investigations with thresholds for abstract words being greater than thresholds for concrete words. Also, thresholds for high frequency of occurrence words were lower than for words of low frequency. Subjects with high and low IQs did not have different recognition thresholds. Frequency and word abstractness/concreteness interacted. Possible explanations for these findings are outlined.

Attentional mechanisms and perceptual asymmetries in tachistoscopic recognition of words and faces

In simultaneous bilateral tachistoscopic recognition tasks, normal right-handers named more words in the right visual field and recognized more faces in the left visual field. Priming the left hemisphere with a verbal task diminished the left field superiority for faces, and priming the right hemisphere with a face-recognition task, reduced the right visual field superiority for words. These priming effects disappeared when a recognition procedure was used. When words and faces were presented simultaneously, subjects required to attend to the faces and report them first showed a left visual field superiority for faces and a right visual field superiority for words. Subjects told to attend to the words and report them first showed only the right visual field superiority for words.

Tachistoscopic word recognition performance under conditions of simultaneous bilateral presentation

Four experiments involving the bilateral tachistoscopic presentation of word pairs are reported. This paradigm was found to generate a right hemi-field recognition advantage across manipulations of word orientation, exposure duration, and fixation control. In two of the experiments this recognition asymmetry was maintained in spite of a significant tendency to initiate the verbal report with any available left hemi-field content. In three of the experiments the strength of the left to right order of report tendency was negatively correlated with the magnitude of the right visual field recognition advantage. A hypothesis to account for the more common finding of left hemi-field recognition superiority with bilateral displays is offered.

Laterality differences in tachistoscopic word recognition in normal and delayed readers in elementary school

Children aged 7–11, with normal reading ability showed a right visual field preference for word recognition whether words were presented to each field singly or simultaneously. A heterogenous group of delayed readers showed similar findings including an enhanced right field preference for bilateral field presentations. A young group of delayed readers (aged 8–9) without known physical, intellectual, emotional or cultural deficits failed to show any field superiority, suggesting an effect of delayed cerebral maturation. Right field preference for word recognition did not correlate with handedness or lateral awareness. The results as discussed lend support to the hypothesis that hemispheric specialization for language processing develops with maturation of the nervous system.

Form of redundancy as a determinant of tachistoscopic word recognition

Single letters and redundant CVCs and CCCs were presented at threshold durations and followed by a pattern mask. Performance on three-letter stimuli was greater than on single letters. The increased performance was consistent with a state model of perceptual independence. Conditional redundancy increased the frequency with which all three letters were accurately reported as compared to correlational redundancy. Meaning and pronounceability had little effect on performance.

Lateral dominance in tachistoscopic word recognition performances obtained with simultaneous bilateral input

Twenty normal Ss performed a monocular tachistoscopic word recognition task. The method employed was that of simultaneous presentation of two words at a time, one word to the left and one to the right of fixation. All Ss recognized more right than left field words. Right field superiority was significant across all Ss ( p<0.001) and for both right and left eye viewing groups (both p<0.005). The results contradict the traditional belief in left field superiority with bilateral word presentation and support a theoretical model which attributes the observed effects to a longer neural pathway from right hemiretinae to left hemisphere language centers. Greater transmission fidelity and lesser transmission time of the shorter pathway are proposed as factors underlying right field superiority.

Effects on tachistoscopic perception from independent variation of word probability and of letter probability

Three experiments were conducted on the tachistoscopic recognition of words in a small fixed vocabulary. In the first, the words were chosen so that some occured more often than others, but nevertheless all consonants contained in the words were equally frequent. In the second three equally probable words differed in that one contained only consonants frequent in the experiment, while the other two words each contained a rare consonant. In the third, equally probable words contained zero, one, or two letters in common with a highly probable word in the same sequence. Correct perception followed word probability in each case, rather than letter probability. Thus probability must certainly affect the tendency to respond in a particular way (in this case, with a certain word) rather than the tendency to take in evidence from particular elements (in this case, certain letters). A finer analysis, however, does not exclude a minor effect of letter probability superimposed on the major one of word probability. The results are discouraging for active and serial theories, and encouraging for passive and parallel ones.

Bilateral tachistoscopic word recognition as a function of hemisphere stimulated and interhemispheric transfer time

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that right field recognition superiority (RFRS) in bilateral tachistoscopic word recognition is partly determined by the time of arrival of the two stimuli at left hemisphere language centers. The method was to “lead” or “lag” one or the other visual half-field word presentations. Both experiments indicated that allowing earlier left-field word presentation failed to increase left-field recognitions and RFRS obtained in all conditions. Ss who experienced two-thirds of their trials with left-field leads had significantly fewer total recognitions, but the second experiment ruled out the possibility that left-field-led trials have any effect on total recognitions when these trials are interspersed with simultaneous and right-field-led trials. The results extend our previous findings regarding RFRS with bilateral presentation but infirm the hypothesis that temporal factors are importantly involved in this RFRS.

Lateral dominance in tachistoscopic word recognitions of children at two levels of ability.

Monocular tachistoscopic word recognition performance as a function of word placement to the right or left of fixation was studied in 20 seventh grade children. Half the subjects possessed normal reading skills, while the other half read at a third grade level. Words directed to the left cerebral hemisphere (right field words) were recognized significantly more often ( P &lt; 0.005) in both groups than words channelled to the right hemisphere. The result supports the view that right field recognition superiority reflects the language specialization of the left hemisphere rather than “training” of the left hemiretinae through the acquisition of reading proficiency.

Some effects of an auditory ready signal on tachistoscopic word recognition.

Some effects of an auditory ready signal on tachistoscopic word recognition.