The initial capitalization superiority effect in German: evidence for a perceptual frequency variant of the orthographic cue hypothesis of visual word recognition.
A perceptual frequency variant of the orthographic cue (OC) hypothesis (Peressotti, Cubelli, & Job, 2003) was tested in two perceptual identification experiments using the variable viewing position technique: German nouns and non-nouns that are most frequently perceived with or without initial letter capitalization, respectively, were tachistoscopically presented in upper-case, lower-case, or with initial capitalization. The results indicated that words were best recognized in the form they are most frequently perceived in, which suggests that during reading acquisition abstract as well as case- and item-specific OCs may be learned and used for recognition.
Arbeitsbereich Allgemeine und Neurokognitive Psychologie, Fachbereich Erziehungswissenschaft und Psychologie, Freie Universität Berlin, Habelschwerdter Allee 45, 14195, Berlin, Germany. ajacobs@zedat.fu-berlin.de
Arthur M
AM
Jacobs
Hans-Christoph
HC
Nuerk
Ralf
R
Graf
Mario
M
Braun
Tatjana A
TA
Nazir
D001288:Attention; D003463:Cues; D004193:Discrimination Learning; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008037:Linguistics; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012660:Semantics; D012858:Size Perception; D014956:Writing