Does letter position coding depend on consonant/vowel status? Evidence with the masked priming technique.
Recently, a number of input coding schemes (e.g., SOLAR model, SERIOL model, open-bigram model, overlap model) have been proposed that capture the transposed-letter priming effect (i.e., faster response times for jugde-JUDGE than for jupte-JUDGE). In their current version, these coding schemes do not assume any processing differences between vowels and consonants. However, in a lexical decision task, Perea and Lupker (2004, JML; Lupker, Perea, & Davis, 2008, L&CP) reported that transposed-letter priming effects occurred for consonant transpositions but not for vowel transpositions. This finding poses a challenge for these recently proposed coding schemes. Here, we report four masked priming experiments that examine whether this consonant/vowel dissociation in transposed-letter priming is task-specific. In Experiment 1, we used a lexical decision task and found a transposed-letter priming effect only for consonant transpositions. In Experiments 2-4, we employed a same-different task - a task which taps early perceptual processes - and found a robust transposed-letter priming effect that did not interact with consonant/vowel status. We examine the implications of these findings for the front-end of the models of visual word recognition.
Perea
Manuel
M
Departamento de Metodología, Facultad de Psicologia, Universitat de València, Av. Blasco Ibáñez. 21, 46010 Valencia, Spain. mperea@valencia.edu
Acha
Joana
J
D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology; D003463:Cues; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D011578:Psycholinguistics; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D013030:Spain; D013334:Students; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*