Word discrimination : a study of the role of prior experience in the processing of briefly available visual information

Abstract

Briefly displayed words are far more accurately recognized if the words displayed are familiar. Although well established, this phenomenon has not yet been adequately explained. word recognition performance combine-s two components the stimulus component, comprising information received from the stimulus and transmitted into the response; and the supplementary component comprising additiona1 information supplied by the subject. Techniques currently available do not enable these two components to be separated. It has therefore not been possible to determine how the effects of familiarity are distributed across the two components This thesis describes techniques which do provide such a separation Employing these techniques it is shown that the effects of: familiarity include changes in the stimulus component, Investigations of the mechanism of these changes in the stimulus component then show that the input is identified as a single particular word within the reception systems. The improvement in recognition performance results from the ensuing reduction in read-out and s storage load. These findings constitute a confirmation of' Woodworth's whole-word theory.