Processing & recognition

• Word recognition - shadow & word monitoring tasks 


  • word recognition = fast
  • repeat or identify words as heard = responses typically occur very quickly
  • = intuitively immediate - recognise before end of word - uniqueness point or before
• Word recognition - Gating - Grosjean 1980

  • presented with word fragments - gradually increasing duration
  • point where guess whole word = isolation point
  • average recation times =
  • out of context - 300 - 350 ms
  • in context - 200ms
• Word processing -

  • The speed and robustness depend on surrounding context
  • word processing system actively seeks matches to incoming sensory input = rapid & robust word recognition even with noise or ambiguity
• Lexical decision

  • Press a button when presented stimulus real word -Words vs non-words
  • Fast response = easy access  400 ms
  • Slow response = hard access  500 ms
• What affects lexical decision times

  • word length - Longer = longer to process
  • word frequency - high frequency = common word = recognized quicker, low = uncommon
  • uniqueness point - early UP = recognised quicker compared to late
  • neighbourhood - number of similar words surrounding target - many = longer to process - competition