| Abstract: | Two experiments were designed in which subjects searched briefly displayed and masked arrays of letters for a single pre-specified target. The target was randomly located at one of twelve positions, its identity remained constant throughout, and it was embedded either in the context of words or in a context of unpronounceable strings of letters. In experiment 1 the letters were arranged in two six-item rows, and word and non-waord displays were mixed and presented to a single group of subjects. Accuracy of search was superior when the letters formed words, both for responses scored for correct position and for responses scored for correct row. In experiment 2 word and non-word displays were presented to different groups of subjects, and for both groups the twelve characters were either arranged as before in two rows or were positioned at loci representing the clock positions. Accuracy of search was again superior when the letters formed words and were arranged in rows, but there was no advantage for words when the letters formed a circle. These findings, firstly, indicated that the “word-superiority effect” obtained in experiment 1 was not a result of subjects adopting a word processing strategy for all stimuli, and secondly, they suggested that the word information could not be used to advantage in the absence of spatial cues delineating the words and/or when the letters were not positioned in the usual horizontal arrangement. It was concluded that the results of both studies were consistent with a perceptual account of the word superiority effect. |
