Derek Besner

Phonological encoding in the lexical decision task

In lexical decision experiments, subjects have difficulty in responding NO to non-words which are pronounced exactly like English words (e.g. BRANE). This does not necessarily imply that access to a lexical entry ever occurs via a phonological recoding of a visually-presented word. The phonological recoding procedure might be so slow that when the letter string presented is a word, access to its lexical entry via a visual representation is always achieved before phonological recoding is completed. If prelexical phonological recodings are produced by using grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules, such recodings can only occur for words which conform to these rules (regular words), since applications of the rules to words which do not conform to the rules (exception words) produce incorrect phonological representations. In two experiments, it was found that time to achieve lexical access (as measured by YES latency in a lexical decision task) was equivalent for regular words and exception words. It was concluded that access to lexical entries in lexical decision experiments of this sort does not proceed by sometimes or always phonologically recoding visually-presented words.

Phonological recoding and lexical access

Four experiments are reported that examine the effects of homophony (e.g., SAIL/SALE) on response latency in a lexical decision task. The results indicated that an effect of homophony was evident only if the nonword distractors consisted of legal, pronounceable strings (e.g., SLINT), but that this effect disappeared if the nonwords sounded like English words (e.g., BRANE). An optional encoding strategy is proposed to account for this differential effect. It is suggested that while both graphemic and phonemic encoding occurred simultaneously, naive subjects tended to rely on the outcome of the phonological route. However, when such reliance produced a high error rate (i.e., when the nonwords sounded like English words),. these subjects were able to abandon a phonological strategy and rely on the graphemic encoding procedure instead. Two further aspects of the results are of interest. First, the less frequent member of a homophone pair was slower when compared with a control item if the nonword distractors were of the SLINT type, but not different if they were of the BRANE type. The high-frequency members did not differ from their controls in either nonword environment. Second, in a homophone “repetition” experiment, the frequency order of presentation within pairs of homophones (i.e., the high-frequency member followed by the low-frequency member, or vice versa) had a substantial effect. A spelling recheck procedure and a response-inhibitory mechanism are postulated to incorporate these effects into a dual-encoding direct-access model of word recognition.

Ideographic and alphabetic processing in skilled reading of English

Abstract Although English is generally considered to be an alphabetically written language some of it is in fact written ideographically. For example, numbers can be written in both forms of script (e.g. 1 or ONE). The present experiments demonstrate that these script forms yield differences in a comprehension task. When normal subjects are asked to judge which of two simultaneously displayed numbers is numerically the larger, irrelevant variations in the physical size of the numbers influence response time when the numbers are printed ideographically, but not when they are printed alphabetically. These results, coupled with the neuropsychological observation that patients who are alexic but not agraphic can name numbers when they are written ideographically but are greatly impaired when the numbers are written alphabetically, suggests that these different script forms engage different processing mechanisms.

This and THAP –- constraints on the pronunciation of new, written words

The pronunciation of nonwords that start with TH is investigated in lists and sentences. The initial phoneme is usually unvoiced (as in THOUGHT) when the nonword is embedded in lists of words and nonwords. In contrast, the initial phoneme is usually voiced (as in THIS) when such nonwords are read aloud in a function word position in a sentence. These findings are inconsistent with the current dual process theory of the routes from print to sound which implies that the phonology of a new word or nonword can be derived only from a form of letter-sound correspondence which is independent of lexical/syntactic pressures.

Models of Lexical Access in Visual Word Recognition

This paper reviews the ability of Mortons Logogen model and Beckers Verification model to accommodate RT data from the lexical decision literature. While both of the models can account for the simple effects of word frequency, word context and word repetition, Mortons Logogen model can not account for some of the patterns of additivity and interaction when the effects of stimulus degradation are considered. An experiment on lexical decision is then reported in which stimulus degradation and repetition are factorially varied; degradation and repetition are shown to be interacting factors. These results are inconsistent with the Verification model but consistent with the Logogen model. Finally, further versions of both the Logogen and Verification models are considered and possible multiple sources are proposed to account for the effects of degradation, repetition and word frequency.

Mental size scaling examined.

Observers made same-different shape judgments of stimuli that were identical in shape and size different in shape but not in size, or differed in relative size along a number of steps for both same- and different- shaped forms. “Same” judgment RTs increased monotonically with increases in the magnitude of the relative size difference. In contrast, “different” judgment RTs were unaffected by changes in relative size. A second experiment in which stimulus presentation was successive rather than simultaneous yielded essentially the same results. Consideration was given to a dual- process model in which a time-consuming analog process normalizes stimuli that are size discrepant prior to a comparison stage that is operative for those structures responsible for “same” decisions but not for “different” judgments. Some evidence that seems inconsistent with a normalization process which operates prior to contact with memory was discussed, and an alternative explanation in which the early detection of a size difference causes changes in decision criteria was suggested.

Same-different judgments with words and nonwords: The differential effects of relative size

Words were paired with words and nonwords with nonwords in a simultaneous matching task requiring a same-different judgment. A difference in size slowed “same” RTs for both words and nonwords, while “differ” RTs for both words and nonwords were unaffected. These results do not support Bruder and Silverman’s 1974 conclusion that the word processing system filters size. The effects of relative size differences were discussed in terms of (a) normalization procedures and (b) changes in states of evidence leading to alterations in a response selection stage.

The mind's eye and the comparative judgement of number

Abstract The proposal that the comparative judgement of numerals is transformed from a symbolic comparison into a perceptual judgement via the use of imagery was examined in a task in which pairs of Arabic numerals were displayed in either the left or right visual field and subjects decided which number was numerically larger by pressing a key. Reaction time was faster in the RVF although there were effects of Hand and an interaction between Hand and Visual Field. These results were interpreted as (i) providing no support for the imagery hypothesis, (ii) evidence consistent with unilateral as opposed to bilateral processing, and (iii) evidence consistent with the proposal that the manipulation of linguostic codes underlies the comparative judgement of number.

Same-different judgments with words and nonwords: A word superiority/inferiority effect

Subjects made same-different judgments on the basis of visual criteria to pairs of letter strings that were either words or nonwords. “Same” RTs were faster for words than nonwords, while “different” RTs were faster for nonwords. These results rule out a race model of parallel self-terminating component processes.

Pattern recognition: Are size and orientation additive factors?

In a recent study, Sekuler and Nash (1972) investigated the effects of irrelevant size and orientation differences on the time taken to decide whether two forms were the same or not. Three findings are of interest: (1) The time to respond same increased monotonically as a function of the magnitude of the relative size difference between the two forms. (2) A 90° difference in orientation between the forms slowed same decision time by approximately 70 msec. (3) When both orientation and size differences were present simultaneously, they had additive effects on reaction time. Sekuler and Nash interpreted these results as evidence consistent with the hypothesis that size and orientation transformations are necessary to normalize the stimuli prior to comparison operations. In their view, size and orientation invariance is thus achieved by a time-consuming process of mental transformation, rather than on the basis of the extraction and comparison of size and rotation invariant features, as has been suggested by other pattern recognition theorists such as Corcoran (1971), Dodwell (1970), Gibson (1969), Milner (1974) and Sutherland (1973). Moreover, the finding that size and orientation effects were additive implies that these operations are sequentially organized such that one operation starts only after the other has finished (see Sternberg, 1969, for a discussion of additive stages logic). The purpose of the present note is to point out that these conclusions were based only on the results of analyses performed on the. reaction time data, the problems of which have been discussed at some length by Pachella (1974). In fact, an analysis of the error data I confirms that a significant interaction between size and orientation is present, F(6,24) = 3.50, p < .02. Clearly, then, the claim that size and orientation are additive factors is no longer tenable. Finally, it should be noted that, in a recent experiment, Cavanagh (1977) has localized the effect of orientation on character classification time at a decision stage in the recognition process. If additive stages logic is accepted, then the presence of an interaction between size and orientation in the Sekuler and Nash study might be taken as indicating that size also has its effects after comparison rather than before, a locus that has been suggested previously by Besner and Coltheart (1975, 1976), and one that is inconsistent with the preprocessing explanation offered by Bundesen and Larsen (1975), Posner (1%9), Posner and Mitchell (1967), and Sekuler and Nash (1972).