For skilled readers, word recognition is an apparently effortless cognitive process that can be swiftly performed across various presentation formats. A seminal study by Driver and Baylis (1995) investigated how two 'real-world' non-canonical orientations might disrupt visual word recognition of English words: namely, 90-degree rotation (e.g., the title on the spine of a book) and a vertical letter arrangement from top to bottom (e.g., the title on a building's marquee banner). Driver and Bayliss found that rotation had a less detrimental impact on speed and accuracy than the marquee presentation, which they interpreted as evidence for the importance of preserving a word's 'principal axis'. The current study seeks to replicate the findings of the original experiment and include a canonical (typical) presentation, which was absent in the original work. This 'baseline' inclusion allows for a clearer assessment of the effects of non-canonical orientations on typical lexical processing in visual word recognition. Additionally, we systematically examined the potential attenuation of these orientation manipulations on two key variables relating to word items (frequency) and nonword items (pseudohomophony) respectively. Our findings broadly replicate those of Driver and Baylis (1995), indicating a graded impact of non-canonical presentation (canonical > rotated > marquee). Lexical effects remained remarkably robust across all presentation formats, suggesting that access persists even when letter strings are presented in such unfamiliar orientations. We interpret this robustness as indicating that the effects of non-canonical presentation on lexical processing are quantitative rather than qualitative in nature.

ABSTRACT Previous studies have shown that the recognition of morphologically complex Greek nouns and verbs is facilitated by morphologically related primes, both derivational and inflectional, and at both early and late stages of processing. This raises the question of whether such facilitation reflects genuine morphological processing or merely similarity in form and/or meaning. To address this issue, we examined the effects of orthographic and semantic similarity on the processing of morphologically complex Greek words during visual word recognition. Using a primed lexical decision task with short and long stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs), we found no facilitation by orthographically or semantically related primes at short SOA, whereas at long SOA, semantically related primes produced significant facilitation. These effects were smaller than previously reported morphological effects. Overall, the results suggest that morphological facilitation in Greek cannot be fully explained by orthographic or semantic overlap but reflects early, explicit morphological processing mechanisms.

Research on visual word recognition has shown that letter and word processing is largely immune to variations in surface properties, such as lowercase/UPPERCASE or CaSe MiXinG presentation, which points to the existence of abstract letter representations. However, in languages with non-alphabetic scripts, a word is represented by a character of symbol, rather than a string of letters. How do biscriptal readers with a primary non-alphabetic orthography read alphabetic words? In the current study, fifty-four native readers of English and 48 logographic-script (Chinese and Japanese) readers performed a lexical decision task on English words and nonwords presented in upper- or lowercase. In line with previous research, case variation had only a very minor effect for the alphabetic readers, but it was much more pronounced for the logographic-script readers, and the case effect emerged both in words and nonwords. Findings are discussed in terms of abstractionist vs episodic accounts of letter processing.

How letter position and identity information in strings is processed has been of great importance for visual word recognition and understanding discrimination between similar words. Position and identity are often not a one-to-one mapping, because in most words at least one letter is repeated, occurring in multiple positions. Whether and how multiple correspondences between identity and position affect reading is not yet clear as repeated letter effects occur inconsistently. Here, we investigated this issue with stimuli constructed from words with repetitions (e.g., REJECTS). We manipulated the presence of different identity information by inserting or deleting repeated (e.g., rejectcs or rjects) or unique letters (e.g., rejectas or rejecs), either as primes for the base words in lexical decision (Experiment 1) or the same-different task (Experiment 3), or as nonword foils in lexical decision (Experiment 2). The deletion of a repeated letter resulted in shorter response times than the deletion of a unique letter, but only in the primed lexical decision task. In contrast, the insertion of a repeated letter resulted in shorter response times than the insertion of a unique letter, but only for the primed same-different and the unprimed lexical decision tasks. Repetition effects were also observed in the accuracy for the nonword foil rejection for both insertions and deletions. These findings provide further evidence for differential processing between repeated and unique letters, while also showing that absent expected repetitions and present redundant repetitions affect processing according to the task, suggesting task idiosyncrasies in the demands, mechanisms or representations involved.

Does visual format matter in brand name recognition? ERP evidence challenging abstractionist models.

Analytic word recognition among L2 speakers: Evidence from character recognition among CSL speakers.

ABSTRACT We conducted three flanker lexical decision experiments to test whether multi-letter and single-letter flankers to the left and right of a target word produce symmetrical facilitation relative to an unrelated control. We also simulated these experiments using the PONG model (Snell, J. (2025). PONG: A computational model of visual word recognition through bihemispheric activation. Psychological Review, 132(3), 505–527), a model that provides quantitative predictions for this task. In Experiment 1 we found symmetrical facilitation from left-consistent and right-consistent bigrams. In contrast, Experiments 2 and 3, using single-letter flankers, revealed leftward benefits, even when the consonant–vowel distribution of the flanker letters was balanced (Experiment 3). The PONG model quantitatively captured the pattern in Experiment 1 but failed to capture the leftward advantage in Experiments 2–3. This dissociation reveals that parafoveal information during visual word recognition is hemifield-symmetric for multi-letter chunks but left-weighted for single letters, suggesting that models of visual word recognition require initial-letter or hemifield weighting to account for single-letter flanker effects.

In German, diacritical marks distinguish between vowel sounds in print (e.g., "o" pronounced /o/ vs. "ö" pronounced /ø/). Unlike in Spanish, where diacritics primarily indicate lexical stress, omitting diacritics in German (e.g., Kröte [toad] → Krote) leads to longer word identification times compared with intact words. This suggests separate letter representations for diacritical and nondiacritical vowels in German. Current models of visual word recognition assume distinct letter representations for diacritical and nondiacritical vowels in German (Ziegler et al., 2000), but it remains unclear whether the reading cost differs when a diacritic is added versus omitted. We conducted three semantic categorization experiments to examine whether the presence of an added diacritic in a nondiacritical word (e.g., Schwan [swan] → Schwän) incurs a greater lexical-semantic cost than its omission (e.g., Kröte → Krote) in German and Finnish, another language where diacritical vowels signal distinct pronunciations. In noisy-channel models, adding a diacritic makes the percept less similar to the base word than omitting one, thus predicting a larger cost. In contrast, abstractionist models assume rapid activation of abstract letter representations, predicting a negligible asymmetry. Results were similar in German and Finnish. First, both types of misspellings showed a reading cost relative to the intact words. Second, the reading cost was larger for the addition than for the omission of diacritics, placing new constraints on the orthographic front-end of models of visual word recognition. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Abstract Previous studies suggest that bilinguals can quickly identify the language to which a word belongs in order to suppress a task-irrelevant language. The current study tested whether nontarget language suppression occurs at the lexical and/or semantic levels and whether the degree of processing differs across these representational levels. Spanish–Basque bilinguals classified words by language membership and animacy, and event-related potential (ERP) results demonstrated that task demands to attend to a single target language reduced frequency effects and eliminated concreteness effects for words in the nontarget language. Results support a partially selective mechanism of bilingual language control based on task demands such that words belonging to the nontarget language are only partially processed at the lexical level and are not processed at a deeper semantic level. These findings specify the locus of bilingual language control in comprehension and call for revisions to models of bilingual visual word recognition such as BIA+.

Emojis have become integral to digital communication, yet their impact on downstream cognitive processing is not fully understood. In two lexical decision experiments, we examined the behavioral and electrophysiological effects of emoji primes that varied by emotional valence (positive, neutral, negative) and face-status (face vs. non-face). Experiment 1, where clearly visible primes were presented for 100 ms, revealed a positivity advantage, with positive emojis facilitating responses and modulating both early (P1) and late (LPP) ERP components, along with a response-locked positivity indicating enhanced motor preparation. Negative emojis elicited early (P1, P2) ERP modulations but did not significantly alter behavior. Face emojis also increased early perceptual components (P1, P2/P3a), suggesting that face-like properties capture attention automatically. Experiment 2 employed continuous flash suppression (CFS) to limit conscious prime perception. Under these conditions, positive emojis no longer facilitated responses, and face-status effects disappeared. Negative emojis, however, showed robust early negativities in the ERPs and a trend toward slower response times, consistent with the automatic vigilance account. Overall, the findings indicate that conscious perception is crucial for the positivity advantage of emojis to manifest, whereas negative stimuli can still engage early neural processes and inhibit performance under limited conscious processing.

This classroom action research investigated the effectiveness of the Picture and Word Matching Technique in enhancing the vocabulary mastery of seventh-grade students at SMP Negeri 3 Pematangsiantar. The study involved 30 students of Class VII-5 and was conducted in two cycles following the stages of planning, action, observation, and reflection. Data were obtained through vocabulary tests, classroom observations, and field notes. The results showed a consistent increase in students' vocabulary performance. The mean score improved from 60.00 in the pre-test to 73.33 in Cycle I and reached 86.00 in Cycle II. The percentage of students achieving the minimum mastery criterion (75) rose from 20% to 90%. Qualitative findings indicated higher student participation, stronger motivation, and more accurate vocabulary use during learning activities. The combination of visual support and word recognition tasks helped students recall and apply new vocabulary more effectively. Overall, the Picture and Word Matching Technique proved to be an effective approach for improving students' vocabulary mastery in descriptive text learning.

Despite decades of intense study, the spatiotemporal processing of letters in visual word recognition has yet to be elucidated, with the debate largely focusing on whether individual letters are processed serially or in parallel. The present study investigated the processing of individual letters and letter combinations through time in visual word recognition using displays where signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) varied randomly throughout a 200 ms exposure duration. In Experiment 1, SNR varied either homogeneously across all letters or independently for each letter position (cf. heterogeneous sampling). Reading accuracy was substantially greater with homogeneous than heterogeneous sampling. Experiment 2 again used heterogeneous sampling and classification images (CIs) were calculated for individual letter positions or conjunctions thereof, reflecting processing efficiency according to time during target exposure. These CIs or their Fourier transforms were passed to a classifier to assess differences in the result patterns across individual letter positions or their conjunctions. Overall, the present results indicate the following: (1) significant parallel letter processing capacity throughout exposure duration; (2) dissociable processing mechanisms for each letter position; and (3) letter position-specific mechanisms for letter conjunctions that are distinct from those for individual letters. The results also provide evidence relevant to the neural code underlying the perceptual mechanisms that were uncovered.

Background: Examining the influence of phonological neighborhoods on the early stages of visual word recognition provides insights into the architecture and dynamics of lexical representation and processing. Methods: Using event-related potentials (ERPs), this investigation explored how phonological neighborhood density (PND; large vs. small) and type (PNT; tone-edit vs. constituent-edit neighbors) influence the recognition of monosyllabic words in Mandarin Chinese. Participants engaged in a priming paradigm combined with a visual lexical decision task. Results: Behavioral data demonstrated the main effect of PNT: words with tone-edit neighbors produced greater processing inhibition compared to those with constituent-edit neighbors. ERP results revealed that large PND enhanced the P200 amplitude, a frontal-mediated effect that was particularly pronounced for tone-edit neighbors. This early differentiation subsequently propelled a stronger N400 response to tone-edit neighbors, culminating in a significant interaction between PND and PNT during the N400 window. Conclusions: These findings support a cascaded competition model: early PND assessment (P200), enhanced for tone neighbors, amplifies their later N400 conflict. This neural mechanism elucidates the hierarchical organization of phonological processing in Chinese monosyllabic words, thereby clarifying a core component which underpins the recognition of more complex words in Mandarin.

Error dynamics as a marker of reading efficiency development: Insights from lexical decision performance in young readers.

Abstract Rapidly processed magnocellular (M) information may facilitate visual object recognition but its role in reading is unclear. A previous study with Chinese characters and masked foveal primes did not find a unique role of the M-system as compared to the parvocellular (P) system in mediating repetition effects. As M cells are better represented in the parafoveal visual field, the present study tested whether the M- and P-systems contribute differentially to parafoveal processing during reading. We combined EEG recordings and eye-tracking to measure parafoveal preview effects in fixation-related potentials (FRPs), using the boundary paradigm. In two experiments, we contrasted high versus low spatial frequency previews and luminance versus color contrast previews and also included standard previews as a manipulation check. As expected, the N250 component was diminished after valid as compared to invalid normal previews, especially over the left hemisphere. We also obtained left-lateralized preview effects for the N250 component for both M- and P-biased previews in both experiments. In the experiment involving a spatial frequency manipulation, P-biased preview effects tended to be larger than M-biased preview effects over the left hemisphere, but not the right hemisphere. No interactions with preview validity were found for the luminance contrast manipulation. This null effect was supported by a Bayesian analysis. Taken together, these results indicate that the M pathway does not exclusively mediate the preview effect, even for stimuli presented in the parafovea. Instead, both M- and P-based information appear to contribute to early, left-lateralized neural processes underlying visual word recognition.

ABSTRACT Myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody-associated disease (MOG AD) is a rare autoimmune demyelinating condition typically presenting with optic neuritis, transverse myelitis, or encephalitis. Its occurrence in immunocompromised individuals, particularly those with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), is rare and presents unique diagnostic and therapeutic challenges. We report the case of a 70-year-old HIV-positive man who developed alexia without agraphia following treatment for opportunistic infections, including Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia and cytomegalovirus. Brain MRI revealed a non-enhancing hyperintense lesion in the medial left occipital lobe extending into the splenium of the corpus callosum. MOG-IgG was positive at a titer of 1:30, while aquaporin-4 antibodies and paraneoplastic panels were negative. Neuropsychological assessment confirmed selective impairment in visual word recognition with preserved writing ability, consistent with alexia without agraphia. The patient was treated with intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) without corticosteroids due to immunosuppressive concerns and demonstrated approximately 40% improvement in visual word recognition accuracy. At six months follow-up, no relapse was observed, and reading ability remained stable. This case represents the first reported instance of MOGAD presenting with alexia without agraphia in an HIV-positive individual, underscoring the importance of considering autoimmune demyelination in immunosuppressed patients with focal neurological deficits.

Temporal dynamics of perceptual integrity and semantic congruency during color-word processing: An ERP and decoding study.

The effect of age, education, and vocabulary size on the speed of word recognition across the lifespan.

Cortical latency predicts reading fluency from late childhood to early adolescence

How is a word visually recognized? We investigated word recognition by employing a novel psychophysical task in which word segments (true morphemes or nonmorphemic orthographic sequences) were colored blue/red, red/blue, or black, while participants wore anaglyph glasses. The color combinations split the words either at the morpheme boundary (legal split) or at one character to the left or to the right of the split (illegal split). This manipulation divided the retinal information along the fovea, allowing us to project the different word segments to both left and right hemispheres via contralateral and ipsilateral visual pathways. Our goal was to investigate the roles of morphology and semantics in the early moments of visual word recognition, potentially tapping functional properties of the visual word form area. Participants (N = 72) performed a masked lexical decision task (60 ms exposure) to semantically transparent compounds (e.g., football), monomorphemic pseudocompounds (e.g., shamrock), and unsegmentable monomorphemic words (e.g., jeopardy). We found an effect of legality for compounds and pseudocompounds, when presented via the stronger contralateral visual pathways, suggesting an early morpho-orthographic segmentation, but with true compounds yielding faster and more accurate responses than pseudocompounds across all projection combinations. Our results are compatible with a model of visual word recognition involving an initial stage of morpho-orthographic analysis that is insensitive to semantics, followed by later stages of morphological computations and semantic access. Although our evidence relies on a psychophysical task, we suggest that these processing stages are in line with a functional division between visual word form area-1 (orthographic) and visual word form area-2 (lexical) in the early visual word recognition system. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).