Processing strategies and letter spacing in the simultaneous- and successive-display matching tasks.

The study examines the effect of adding extra blank space between the letters of eight-letter pseudowords (e.g., HEMINDOL vs. H E M I N D O L) on subjects' performance in both a simultaneous- and a successive-display matching task. The experiment shows that the effects of the manipulation depend on the task. In the simultaneous-display condition extra spacing between letters served to reduce response latencies, whereas in the successive-display condition the extra space between letters increased response latencies. The results belie an explanation based on visual factors such as retinal acuity and lateral masking and are discussed in terms of an information processing account which includes a spacing-sensitive operator. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Blank characters in tachistoscopic recognition: Space has both a symbolic and a sensory role.

In a free-recall tachistoscopic task, increased letter spacing reduces the advantage of familiar pseudo-words over random letter strings. To explore this phenomenon, 2 ways of introducing "extra" space between letters were compared in 2 experiments involving 69 undergraduates. Using both a partial-report bar-probe task and a free-recall task, letter spacing was increased by (1) spreading normally sized material over a wider visual angle and (2) reducing letter size while holding the retinal position constant. In free recall, the space between letters relative to their height controlled performance by altering the size of the familiarity effect. In the probe task, however, accuracy of report depended on letter size, and the familiarity effect was independent of the size and spacing manipulations. Thus, in free-recall, the space between letters served as a blank character, but in the partial-report task, visual resolution controlled performance. (French abstract) (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory scanning: Are fixed and varied sets scanned concurrently or successively?

Subjects were timed as they decided whether individually presented probe letters were or were not contained in pairs of memorized sets of one, two, or four letters. One set was fixed in advance of a block of trials, while the other varied from trial to trial. In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects responded positively if the probe was in either set and negatively otherwise; in Experiment 3 they made different responses to fixed-set, varied-set, and negative probes. In all three experiments, reaction time (RT) to varied-set probes depended more on the size of the varied set than of the fixed set, whereas RT to fixed-set and negative probes depended more on the size of the fixed set. These results were generally consistent with the hypothesis that scanning of the two sets was at least to some extent concurrent rather than successive, with the fixed set scanned more slowly than the varied set. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the functional relationship between word identification and letter probability.

Investigated whether words made up of probable letters and probable letter combinations are more accurately recognized than words made up of improbable letters and improbable letter combinations. The experimental method corrected shortcomings in previous research which has shown accuracy of word recognition to be affected only by word probability and not by letter probability. The shortcomings were the confounding of different letter probability dimensions within one another. In the present investigation with 40 19-43 yr old adults, 100 words were assessed with respect to the probabilities of their letters and, independently, the conditional probabilities of their letters. Subsequent tests of recognition accuracy in a brief presentation showed accuracy to be greatest for words made up of letters having either high simple probabilities or high conditional probabilities. It is concluded that word recognition is an active, perhaps serial, process which makes liberal use of individual letter statistics to facilitate accurate recognition. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preferences for letters of the alphabet.

"To determine whether or not consistent preferences for letters of the alphabet exist in the populations, and to identify pairs of letters which have equal preference value, seven letters presented pair-wise in all possible combinations to 182 students (138 males, 44 females) at the University of Minnesota. Only seven letters were used in order to reduce the Ss' task, these seven being chosen on the basis of two preliminary studies as having the least likelihood of being different from each other in appeal. By lowering the significance level of the statistical test, a few pairs can be found for which the probability is high that they are nearly equal. The following pairs showed a preference for the letter listed first at the 1% level: SK, SG, SP, ST, GK." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Spatial localization in sequential letter displays.

Conducted 2 experiments with a total of 26 undergraduates to investigate the ability to locate letters presented successively along a horizontal row. The letters were displayed for 5 msec, and the inter-letter interval varied between 0 and 200 msec. In Exp I, localization decreased as the inter-letter interval was increased to 50 msec. With further increments in inter-letter interval, performance improved. However, there was a correlation between the positions of the letters in space and in time. Exp II indicated that the recovery in spatial localization with inter-letter intervals greater than 50 msec is spurious (i.e., it does not occur if the correlation is minimized). (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Making letters distinctive.

Results of a study with 77 kindergartners, 24 1st graders, 21 2nd graders, and 6 college students show that small graphic changes made in normal letters of the alphabet changed the similarity relations among those letters. All Ss classified letters of this distinctive font faster and with fewer errors than they classified normal letters. It is shown that it is not features alone but relations between features within letters, and relations between letters in the stimulus set, that determine how difficult any particular letter is to classify. The advantage of the distinctive font is such that many children had less difficulty classifying distinctive letters into bins labeled with normal letters than doing the conceptually easier match-to-sample task of placing normal letters into bins labeled with normal letters. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Letter encoding in visual word identification: More evidence for a word-integration explanation for parafoveal preview effects in reading.

A letter string presented briefly in the parafovea facilitates naming a foveally presented word provided that the two stimuli are orthographically similar. The facilitation is asymmetrical in that to obtain it, both letter strings must have the first letters in common. One possible explanation, a letter-integration hypothesis, proposes that readers only identify the letters at the beginning of the parafoveal stimulus, an action that facilitates processing the target. Another explanation, a word-integration hypothesis, postulates that all the letters of the parafoveal stimulus are identified and that the asymmetry occurs because the first letters of the parafoveal stimulus are weighted more heavily than the later ones. The two accounts differ in the way the position of the first letter is determined. To distinguish the views, English and Hebrew stimuli were presented to 7 bilingual readers. 12 normal students participated as controls. Readers could not anticipate the position of the first letters; hence, if the letter-integration explanation is correct, the asymmetry in the priming should be attenuated. Consistent with the word-integration explanation, however, priming occurred when the target shared the beginning letters with the prime in both languages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parafoveal identification asymmetry: interactive effects of shape and color

If two adjacent letters project to the parafoveal region of the retina, both accuracy and discriminability measures have revealed that a letter flanked to its foveal side is identified more accurately than a letter the same distance from the fovea that is flanked to its peripheral side. This parafoveal identification asymmetry is greater if the letters are dissimilar in shape than if they are similar. Color and brightness were introduced as variables in the present experiments. The identification asymmetry was greatest for dissimilar letters in different (complementary) colors. Although those colors differed also in brightness, two letters that were achromatic but merely different in brightness did not produce an asymmetry interaction with shape. Interletter separation was varied between .15 and 1.95 deg, and the pattern of results just described persisted across both distances. The synergistic interaction of shape relation and color relation in determining the amount of identification asymmetry suggests that color and shape affect perceptual processing at the same level.     

Are individual or consecutive letters the unit affected by repetition blindness?

When 2 similar words (e.g., react reach) are briefly sequentially displayed, the 2nd word may be omitted from the report, a phenomenon known as repetition blindness (RB). Previous researchers have suggested that consecutive letters are the unit affected by RB. Six experiments provided new data on orthographic RB. Two letters at the beginning or end of words resulted in RB, as did alternating interior letters (tactile earthly) and 3 letters with different relative positions (arid bird). However, no RB was found with a single final letter (show view). Observed RB may reflect pattern completion because RB for pairs like throat theory was reduced when the nonrepeated letters (eory) were consistent with only a single word. The experiments point to a model of orthographic RB in which both individual letters and letter sequences of length 2 or more play a role. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Groups perform better than the best individuals on letters-to-numbers problems: Informative equations and effective strategies.

One-hundred 3-person groups and 300 individuals solved 2 letters-to-numbers problems, requiring identification of the coding of 10 letters to 10 numbers by proposing an equation in letters, receiving the answer in letters, proposing a hypothesis, and receiving feedback on the hypothesis on each trial. There were 5 instruction conditions: (a) standard, (b) use at least 3 letters on all equations, (c) use at least 4 letters on all equations, (d) number 1 known before beginning problem, and (e) number 9 known before beginning problem. The groups had fewer trials to solution, proposed more complex equations, and identified more letters per equation than the best individuals. Performance was best under instructions to use at least 4 letters and with the number 9 known. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Serial position effects in the identification of letters, digits, and symbols.

In 6 experiments, the authors investigated the form of serial position functions for identification of letters, digits, and symbols presented in strings. The results replicated findings obtained with the target search paradigm, showing an interaction between the effects of serial position and type of stimulus, with symbols generating a distinct serial position function compared with letters and digits. When the task was 2-alternative forced choice, this interaction was driven almost exclusively by performance at the first position in the string, with letters and digits showing much higher levels of accuracy than symbols at this position. A final-position advantage was reinstated in Experiment 6 by placing the two alternative responses below the target string. The end-position (first and last positions) advantage for letters and digits compared with symbol stimuli was further confirmed with the bar-probe technique (postcued partial report) in Experiments 5 and 6. Overall, the results further support the existence of a specialized mechanism designed to optimize processing of strings of letters and digits by modifying the size and shape of retinotopic character detectors' receptive fields. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A new type of test answer sheet.

An examination sheet in which the "outlines of the letters occupy the same space as the registration markings on a standard answer sheet suitable for machine scoring" is described. "The examinee is instructed to blacken out the letter that goes with the answer he has chosen as being correct." Seven benefits of the new system are specified. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of acoustic confusability on levels of information processing.

Employed a modification of M. I. Posner and R. F. Mitchell's choice RT design in which 10 experimentally naive undergraduates were required to respond "same" or "different" to simultaneous pairs of letters. Response was always on the basis of name identity (e.g., AA and Aa are "same," AB is "different"). Letter pairs were selected from populations of acoustically confusable or nonconfusable letters. Each pair of letters was either physically identical, had identical names, or had different names. The RTs to physically identical pairs were fastest, and did not differ between confusable and nonconfusable pairs. For all other comparisons, RT to acoustically confusable pairs took longer than to nonconfusable pairs. Results appear to support the hypothesis of an auditory encoding stage at which comparisons between items are made on the basis of acoustic components of their memory representations. (French summary) (20 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What's in a Name?

The necessity of cross-validating the results of an item analysis has been cogently and humorously demonstrated by Cureton (Educ. psychol. Measmt., 1950, 10, 94-96; see record 1951-00682-001). By using more predictor items than subjects and by computing his validity coefficient on the original group, Cureton obtained a validity coefficient of .82. The writer undertook an experiment which was designed to be equally illustrative of the importance of cross-validation, but which used a somewhat different design. The "test" in this case consisted of a checklist of 81 adjectives describing personality and 22 items relating to personal characteristics, habits, and preferences. The subjects were 59 students in an introductory psychology course at Cornell University. Twenty-nine subjects' tests were chosen at random from this group for preliminary analysis, and the remaining 30 were put aside as the cross-validation group. The answers to the group of 22 items were examined to find an item which split the group of 29 nearly in half. The "number of letters in last name" was chosen as the criterion solely on this basis, leaving a total of 102 predictor items. The criterion was dichotomized between six or less, and seven or more letters. Tetrachoric correlations were computed between each item and the criterion for the group of 29. Discriminant weights were arbitrarily assigned to each item that correlated .36 or better with the criterion. Using this scoring key, 27 out of 29 correct "predictions" were made as to the number of letters in each subject's last name. The over-all tetrachoric correlation was .97, although the split-half reliability coefficient was only .67. Those subjects with long (seven or more letters) last names tended to be less: charming, impatient, stimulating, gay, happy-go-lucky, and impulsive than those with short (six or fewer letters) last names. The subjects with long last names also tended to be more: cautious, persistent, forgiving, quiet, kind, persuasive, talented, direct, humane, conservative, precise, and God-fearing. The results suggested that if the procedure were reversed, and the criterion were used as a predictor, it might have great promise as a quick, economical, and unfakeable personality test. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of structural and naming factors of letters upon the recognition of tachistoscopic letters (author''s transl)

To determine the nature of effects of a preceding letter stimulus upon the recognition of a following letter stimulus, 20 subjects were sequentially and tachistoscopically presented pairs of letters of pairs of random patterns, which consist of the same number of elements, and asked to judge whether they were "same" or "different" in form. Four variable interstimulus intervals (ISI) between the 1st stimuli and the 2nd stimuli were employed as parameters. Results obtained were as follows: (a) percentages of correct responses for the letters were not significantly different from those for the random patterns, and (b) percentages of correct responses for the "same" matching tasks were significantly higher than those for the "different" matching tasks, but, differences in number of correct responses between the two tasks diminished as ISI increased. These results reveal structural, rather than naming, effects of preceding letters in the information processing of matching single letters.     

Font regularity constraints on the process of letter recognition.

Strings of four unrelated letters were presented for subjects to identify, followed by a patterned mask and then a forced choice test of each letter position. In Experiment 1, the type style in the regular conditions was consistent—all of the letters were of a single type font—whereas in the mixed condition, each string contained letters from two type fonts. Compared with the mixed condition, accuracy in the regular conditions was higher overall and increased at a faster rate as a function of processing time. This held across four sessions. In Experiment 2, the font in the mixed condition was varied either between or within letter strings; sizeable advantages for the regular conditions were found with both mix-methods. The results are consistent with the idea of a schemalike perceptual system that becomes tuned to the regularities of a particular font in order to process visual information efficiently. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Orientation congruency effects on the identification of disoriented shapes.

Effects of orientation on identification can be attenuated when other patterns at the same (or a similar) orientation are identified in close temporal contiguity. In Experiments 1 and 2, letters were presented simultaneously in brief masked displays. Identification accuracy was much higher when the letters had consistent orientations than when the letters had different orientations within a display. In Experiment 3, two letters were presented sequentially. Identification accuracy was higher with congruent than with incongruent orientations. The results are unexpected if one assumes that the patterns themselves are rotated until upright prior to their identification, unless pattern rotation processes can be primed, and that priming requires orientation congruence between the priming and primed stimulus. The results are expected if the orientation of a frame of reference can be adjusted to the orientation of the patterns during the identification process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading mutilated text.

Conducted 2 experiments, one with 12 6th graders considered to be good readers and one with 12 junior high and high school students who had normal IQs but were 2 yrs behind on standardized reading scores. Ss read passages of text which had been mutilated by changing the shape of the words and/or the initial, medial, or final letter of words. When the shape had been maintained by replacing letters with letters that shared distinctive features and were visually confusable with them, less reading time was taken and fewer errors were made than when the shape had been altered by replacing letters with letters that were not visually confusable with them. In addition, mutilations to the beginning of a word were considerably more disruptive than mutilations to the middle or end of a word. Good readers and poor readers showed highly similar data patterns. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Letters by Freud on experimental psychodynamics.

Offers the author's recall of a personal exchange with Freud when Rosenzweig was a young psychologist, a memory prompted by the article by L. T. Benjamin, Jr. and D. N. Dixon (see record 83-32709) which discussed Freud's characteristics as a correspondent in general. In letters on 2 separate occasions, the author remembers that Freud made a similar negative response to any attempts to explore psychoanalytic theory by laboratory methods. This exchange clearly underscored Freud's distrust of, if not opposition to, experimental approaches to the validation of his clinically derived concepts. These letters are reproduced elsewhere with commentary (S. Rosenzweig, 1985). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)