A developmental evaluation of the role of word shape in word recognition

Fourth- and seventh-grade children and college-age adults proofread passages typed either in lowercase or in all capital letters. Words were misspelled by deleting one of four letters, s, c, k, or p, that have similar features in lowercase and uppercase. Proofreading errors decreased with age and increasing reading ability, but all of the subjects were sensitive to changes in word shape--they missed more words with deletions of s or c than k or p in the lowercase passage but not in the all-capitals passage. These findings indicate that word shape is an important variable in recognizing familiar words, even for young readers.     

Output and retrieval interference in the missing-number task

Three experiments are reported that represent a reexamination of the missing-number method (Buschke, 1963b) of estimating short-term memory span. The missing-number task involved presenting a random sequence of all but one of the numbers of a known reference set and asking subjects to identify the missing number. Experiment 1 introduced a modified missing-number task that included two missing items and two choices made by the subject. With a large decline in performance for the second choice relative to the first, it is possible that only the second choice was subject to output or retrieval interference. An alternative explanation is that subjects output the number with the weakest memory representation as their first response. By postcuing subjects to report their two choices in a forward or backward sequence, Experiment 2 provided evidence against the importance of output interference and support either for the importance of retrieval interference or for the "weakest-first" hypothesis. However, with a paradigm that replaced only correctly identified missing numbers, a prediction that subjects would select the number with the weakest memory representation as their first response was not confirmed in Experiment 3. Instead, retrieval interference was implicated to explain the first-choice superiority found in Experiments 1 and 3. The results were interpreted in terms of the TODAM model of Murdock (1982, 1987, in press).     

Detection errors in a task with articulatory suppression: Phonological receding and reading

In two experiments, subjects read passages of text and circled instances of a target letter under normal conditions or while engaged in articulatory suppression. In Experiment 1, subjects searching for the letter e made a disproportionately large number of errors on the word “the” and more errors when e occurred in unstressed than in stressed syllables of three-syllable words. In Experiment 2, subjects searching for the letter f made an exceedingly large number of errors on the word “of.” Articulatory suppression significantly reduced the stress effect in the three-syllable words but did not reduce the tendency to make errors on “the” or “of,” suggesting that phonological recoding is responsible for this effect of stress but does not influence the unitization processes of reading.     

A secondary-task analysis of a word familiarity effect

In three experiments we examined aspects of the word inferiority effect and word frequency disadvantage for letter detection. In Experiment 1 we tested a prediction derived from a hypothesis based solely on attentional factors. Adult subjects performed one of two secondary detection tasks while reading for comprehension. The inferiority effects were obtained only when the secondary task was letter detection, not when nonletter targets were used in the secondary task. This finding is inconsistent with the attentional hypothesis, but is consistent with the unitization hypothesis of Healy and Drewnowski (1983). In Experiments 2 and 3 we found that manipulation of the need to read for comprehension had little influence on the letter-detection inferiority effects, but a strong influence on the effects involving the detection of nonletter targets. These results are discussed in terms of their implications concerning processing system flexibility.     

Identification of letters in the predesignated target paradigm: a word superiority effect for the common word the

The size of the perceptual unit used in reading was addressed using the predesignated target paradigm. Sixteen subjects viewed the following stimuli in random order: the words tee, the, tie, and toe; the nonwords eet, eht, eit, and eot; and the letters e, h, i, and o. Subjects fixated on the location of the center letter and identified the letter as e, h, i, or o, alternatives which were known to them at the onset. A word superiority effect was obtained for the common word the but not for the less common words tee, tie, and toe. The word superiority effect was attributable to bias rather than discriminability: Subjects exhibited a bias to perceive the words in this experiment as the (i.e., there was a bias to perceive h in the t e stimulus presentations). These results suggest that the common word the is processed in reading units that are larger than the letter, and that the system is biased to perceive common rather than uncommon words in data-limited conditions.     

Grading the ‘cultural literacy’ project

The essay examines the argument advanced by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., for instituting ‘cultural literacy’ as a fundamental priority of schools. A number of confusions and equivocations in Hirsch's reasoning are identified, and the propensity of his project to indoctrinate is exposed. Among the features of Hirsch's argument shown to be troubling are his shifting construal of ‘language’, his inconsistency about the requirements of cultural literacy, and his uncritical relation to traditional images of the American past and present. The upshot is to raise the question why Hirsch's project has elicited wide support and praise.     

Referenzsemantik in der Partnermodellierung

How can we explain that an assertion on something perceived can be understood in the same manner by somebody who cannot perceive that scene? This problem bases the interest in computational linguistics in how listener modeling could possibly be harmonized with reference semantics. Mental images substituting real perception appear as a way out. The architecture of the listener model has to be adapted to the creation and use of such pictorial data structures. Furthermore, the relation between the latter and a verbal (i. e., propositional) representation must be understood. The resulting architecture of a listener model with reference semantics can be employed to solve communicational problems from three general classes in a better way, as is demonstrated by an example implementation.