| Abstract: | Observers looked for an out-of-category item, either a singular word in a list of nonwords (i.e., random collections of letters) or a singular nonword in a list of words. When list items were presented simultaneously (Exp 1), words were detected faster than nonwords, but a singular word in a nonword list was missed more often than a singular nonword in a word list. These results are consistent with the internal-noise principle (INP). According to the INP, legal letter sequences are more likely to be misperceived as illegal than are illegal sequences as legal; thus, there was more rechecking of perceived nonwords than perceived words. With rapid serial visual presentation of list items (Exp 2), the effect of list type vanished. The missing-feature principle, which credits unresolved letters and features to legal letter sequences wherever possible, was as strong and evident as the INP during early processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
