Lexical priming from partial-word previews.

Two naming and 2 lexical decision experiments examined the use of partial-word previews in visual word recognition. Replicating results of an earlier reading study, the results of Exps 1 and 2 revealed significant benefits from position-specific beginning- and ending-letter previews. Furthermore, benefits from beginning letters were greater for words than for pseudowords. Ending-letter previews showed no corresponding lexical superiority. Exp 3 revealed that preview of position-specific letters from the beginning plus the ending part of target stimuli, which did not reveal a unique word-beginning letter sequence, facilitated the classification of words but not pseudowords. The results support a 2-route model of lexical access in which some partial-word previews afford activation of specific lexical representations, and some partial-word previews afford activation of subword representations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)