The word superiority effect in brief visual displays: Elimination by vocalization

A variation on the experiments of Reicher (1968) and Wheeler (1970) was performed to expose the difference between the perceptual processing of words and that of single letters that leads to the word superiority effect in brief visual displays. The innovation m the present experiment is the use of a 1.5-sec interval between stimulus offset and choice onset during which Ss were required to vocalize the stimulus. A visual noise mask was presented during this interval. A control group was run with the conditions of choice delay and vocalization requirement absent, i.e., they were tested under the conditions used by Reicher and Wheeler. For the control group, recognition accuracy for words was 6.1% greater than for letters, while for the experimental group, recognition accuracy for letters was 5.6% greater than for words.