Illusory words created by repetition blindness: a technique for probing sublexical representations

When two orthographically similar words are displayed using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP), the repeated letters in the second critical word (W2) are not detected, leading to a deficit in reporting this word, a phenomenon known as repetition blindness (RB). The unrepeated letters in W2 do appear to be detected and available to feed activation to words compatible with them (Morris & Harris, 1999). When a fragment was strategically placed in the RSVP stream, as in GROW throw ank, observers reported seeing thank more often than in the control condition BEAT throw ank. Illusory words were facilitated by repetition blindness only when the recombining letters maintained their position in the words. Illusory word report was insensitive to the phonological similarity of the recombining letters; equal quantities of illusory words were created by sequences like china CHEAT THR (-->threat) and swung SWEAT THR (-->threat). In addition to being an interesting phenomenon in its own right, the illusory words paradigm may have considerable use as a tool for probing the perceptual units underlying visual word recognition.