Chapter 1. Word Superiority

1.1 Introduction

In this experiment, letters will be flashed briefly. Sometimes it will be one letter, sometimes more than one. In all cases, you will be asked to identify the letter flashed or one of the multiple letters that were flashed. Try to be as accurate as you can.

1.2 Experiment Setup

1.3 Instructions

In this task you will be presented with a stimulus: a word, a letter alone, or randomly ordered letters. The stimulus will be presented very briefly. After the stimulus is presented, you will be shown a pattern like this:

--?-

N or V

Your task is to try to recall the letter that appeared in the position indicated by the question mark. In this example, if you were shown a word, you would report the third letter in the word; if it was randomly ordered letters, you report the letter in the third position; and if you were shown just a single letter, you just need to report which letter you were shown. The correct letter will be one of the two choices shown below the pattern of dashes. Just type the letter you recall. Typing a letter will take you to the next trial. You will not advance unless you type one of the two letters indicated. Case does not matter.

1.4 Experiment

1.5 Results

1.6 Debriefing

Reading is a complex ability, but is so well practiced that despite its complexity, we read with great ease. Our skill at reading actually makes reading harder to study because we read so incredibly fast. Many features of the reading task support the speed of reading.

Recall the results from the experiment. You performed better recalling the letters when they were in the context of a word than when either alone or in a set of randomly ordered letters. It is important to understand the construction of the stimuli. In the word condition, the word that might be flashed could be

WORD

and you might be asked to identify the last letter

---?

and you would be asked to choose between D or K.

Notice that either letter choice would lead to a real word: WORD or WORK. So to be correct you have to have read the word correctly to respond to the letter correctly. Somehow the letter being in the word makes it easier to read. This results show the benefit of the letter being in a context, in this case a word.

While the discussion so far has emphasized reading, context can help in perceiving all sorts of objects. It is also possible that one of the contributing factors to the word superiority effect is just the general perceptual benefit of context rather than a reading benefit (Reicher, 1969).

References:

Reicher, G. M. (1969). Perceptual recognition as a function of meaningfulness of stimulus material. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 81(2), 275-280.

Wong, E., & Weisstein, N. (1982). A new perceptual context-superiority effect: Line segments are more visible against a figure than against a ground. Science, 218(4572), 587-589.

Peterzell, D. H., Sinclair, G. P., Healy, A. F., & Bourne, L. E. (1990). Identification of letters in the predesignated target paradigm: A word superiority effect for the common word the. The American Journal of Psychology, 103(3), 299-315.

1.7 Quiz