scholarly journals Letter chunk frequency does not explain morphological masked priming

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mara De Rosa ◽  
Davide Crepaldi
Keyword(s):  
Visual Processing ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Masked Priming ◽  
Visual Word ◽  
System Sensitivity ◽  
Early Visual Processing ◽  
Morphological Status ◽  
Visual Word Identification ◽  
Rule Out

AbstractResearch on visual word identification has extensively investigated the role of morphemes, recurrent letter chunks that convey a fairly regular meaning (e.g., lead-er-ship). Masked priming studies highlighted morpheme identification in complex (e.g., sing-er) and pseudo-complex (corn-er) words, as well as in nonwords (e.g., basket-y). The present study investigated whether such sensitivity to morphemes could be rooted in the visual system sensitivity to statistics of letter (co)occurrence. To this aim, we assessed masked priming as induced by nonword primes obtained by combining a stem (e.g., bulb) with (i) naturally frequent, derivational suffixes (e.g., -ment), (ii) non-morphological, equally frequent word-endings (e.g., -idge), and (iii) non-morphological, infrequent word-endings (e.g., -kle). In two additional tasks, we collected interpretability and word-likeness measures for morphologically-structured nonwords, to assess whether priming is modulated by such factors. Results indicate that masked priming is not affected by either the frequency or the morphological status of word-endings, a pattern that was replicated in a second experiment including also lexical primes. Our findings are in line with models of early visual processing based on automatic stem/word extraction, and rule out letter chunk frequency as a main player in the early stages of visual word identification. Nonword interpretability and word-likeness do not affect this pattern.

scholarly journals Letter chunk frequency does not explain morphological masked priming

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mara De Rosa ◽  
Davide Crepaldi
Keyword(s):  
Visual Processing ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Masked Priming ◽  
Visual Word ◽  
System Sensitivity ◽  
Early Visual Processing ◽  
Morphological Status ◽  
Visual Word Identification ◽  
Rule Out

Research on visual word identification has extensively investigated the role of morphemes, recurrent letter chunks that convey a fairly regular meaning (e.g.,lead-er-ship). Masked priming studies highlighted morpheme identification in complex (e.g., sing-er) and pseudo-complex (corn-er) words, as well as in nonwords (e.g., basket-y). The present study investigated whether such sensitivity to morphemes could be rooted in the visual system sensitivity to statistics of letter (co)occurrence. To this aim, we assessed masked priming as induced by nonword primes obtained by combining a stem (e.g.,bulb) with (i) naturally frequent, derivational suffixes (e.g.,-ment), (ii) non-morphological, equally frequent word endings (e.g.,-idge), and (iii) non-morphological, infrequent word endings (e.g.,-kle). In two additional tasks, we collected interpretability and word-likeness measures for morphologically-structured nonwords, to assess whether priming is modulated by such factors. Results indicate that masked priming is not affected by either the frequency or the morphological status of word endings. Our findings are in line with models of early visual processing based on automatic stem/word extraction, and rule out letter chunk frequency as a main player in the early stages of visual word identification. Nonword interpretability and word-likeness do not affect this pattern.

scholarly journals Morphological priming of inflectional suffixes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarina Marjanovic ◽  
Davide Crepaldi
Keyword(s):  
Priming Effect ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Masked Priming ◽  
Visual Word ◽  
Priming Paradigm ◽  
Morphological Priming ◽  
Visual Word Identification ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Complex Words

Morphologically complex words are processed through their constituent morphemes during visual word recognition. While this has been primarily established through the stem priming paradigm, the role of shared affixes is more controversial. Also, most evidence on affix priming comes from derivation, while inflectional priming remains largely unaddressed. Here we present two lexical decision, masked priming experiments filling this gap. Taking advantage of the rich inflectional pattern of Slovene, we assessed inflectional suffix priming (mestam–HALJAM), and compared it to the well-established stem priming effect (haljov–HALJAM): while the latter is solid as expected, the former seems to be weak to non–existing. Results further indicate that there is no interaction between sharing a stem and sharing an inflectional suffix—neither stem nor suffix priming is boosted when primes and targets also share the other morpheme. These data indicate an important difference between stems, derivational affixes and inflectional affixes, which we consider in the context of models of visual word identification and information theory.

Does Top-Down Feedback Modulate the Encoding of Orthographic Representations During Visual-Word Recognition?

2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (5) ◽  
pp. 278-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Perea ◽  
Ana Marcet ◽  
Marta Vergara-Martínez
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Response Times ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Masked Priming ◽  
Visual Word ◽  
Top Down ◽  
Orthographic Representations ◽  
Visual Word Identification ◽  
Matched Case

Abstract. In masked priming lexical decision experiments, there is a matched-case identity advantage for nonwords, but not for words (e.g., ERTAR-ERTAR <  ertar-ERTAR; ALTAR-ALTAR = altar-ALTAR). This dissociation has been interpreted in terms of feedback from higher levels of processing during orthographic encoding. Here, we examined whether a matched-case identity advantage also occurs for words when top-down feedback is minimized. We employed a task that taps prelexical orthographic processes: the masked prime same-different task. For “same” trials, results showed faster response times for targets when preceded by a briefly presented matched-case identity prime than when preceded by a mismatched-case identity prime. Importantly, this advantage was similar in magnitude for nonwords and words. This finding constrains the interplay of bottom-up versus top-down mechanisms in models of visual-word identification.

The Role of Familiarity in a Face Classification Task Using Thatcherized Faces

2005 ◽  
Vol 58 (6) ◽  
pp. 1103-1118 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah V. Stevenage ◽  
Elizabeth A. Lee ◽  
Nick Donnelly
Keyword(s):  
Visual Processing ◽  
Target Face ◽  
Classification Task ◽  
Space Model ◽  
Face Space ◽  
Face Classification ◽  
Early Visual Processing ◽  
The Face ◽  
Theoretical Developments

Two experiments are reported to test the proposition that facial familiarity influences processing on a face classification task. Thatcherization was used to generate distorted versions of familiar and unfamiliar individuals. Using both a 2AFC (which is “odd”?) task to pairs of images (Experiment 1) and an “odd/normal” task to single images (Experiment 2), results were consistent and indicated that familiarity with the target face facilitated the face classification decision. These results accord with the proposal that familiarity influences the early visual processing of faces. Results are evaluated with respect to four theoretical developments of Valentine's (1991) face-space model, and can be accommodated with the two models that assume familiarity to be encoded within a region of face space.

Lexical and Sublexical Components of Age-related Changes in Neural Activation during Visual Word Identification

2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-487 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wythe L. Whiting ◽  
David J. Madden ◽  
Linda K. Langley ◽  
Laura L. Denny ◽  
Timothy G. Turkington ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Word Frequency ◽  
Word Length ◽  
Word Identification ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Visual Word ◽  
Neural Activation ◽  
Age Related ◽  
Visual Word Identification

Positron emission tomography data (Madden, Langley, et al., 2002) were analyzed to investigate adult age differences in the relation between neural activation and the lexical (word frequency) and sublexical (word length) components of visual word identification. The differential influence of these components on reaction time (RT) for word/nonword discrimination (lexical decision) was generally similar for the two age groups, with word frequency accounting for a greater proportion of lexical decision RT variance relative to word length. The influence of word length on RT, however, was relatively greater for older adults. Activation in regions of the ventral occipito-temporal cortex was related to the RT changes associated with word frequency and length for older adults, but not for younger adults. Specifically, older adults' frequency effects were related to activation in both anterior (Brodmann's area [BA] 37) and posterior (BAs 17 and 18) regions of the occipito-temporal pathway, whereas word length effects were only associated with posterior activation (BA 17). We conclude that aging affects the neural mechanisms supporting word identification performance although behavioral measures of this ability are generally constant as a function of age.

Orthographic processing in visual word identification

1990 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 517-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glyn W Humphreys ◽  
Lindsay J Evett ◽  
Philip T Quinlan
Keyword(s):  
Word Identification ◽  
Visual Word ◽  
Orthographic Processing ◽  
Visual Word Identification
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