Related Experiment Videos
The effects of syntactic structure on letter detection in adjacent function words
S N Greenberg1, A Koriat, A Shapiro
1Department of Psychology, Union College, Schenectady, NY 12308.
Memory & Cognition
|November 1, 1992
Summary
Letter detection in common word sequences is not impaired by unitization. Reading processes extract phrase structure, influencing letter access in familiar function words.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Psycholinguistics
- Reading Science
Background:
- Frequent function-word sequences are often considered "unitized" in reading.
- This unitization is hypothesized to prevent access to individual letters within these sequences.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate letter detection within highly frequent function-word sequences.
- To test the "unitization account" against alternative explanations for reading phenomena.
Main Methods:
- Examined letter detection in "for" and "the" in varying sequential contexts.
- Compared letter detection in familiar (adjacent) versus less familiar (separated) sequences.
- Assessed the influence of syntactic roles and clause boundaries on letter detection.
Main Results:
- Letter detection was not significantly harder in familiar adjacent sequences compared to separated ones.
- Letter detection was influenced by syntactic roles and clause separation.
- Clause separation, especially with a comma, enhanced letter detection.
Conclusions:
- The "unitization account" of the "missing-letter" effect in common phrases is challenged.
- Reading involves the extraction of phrase structure, which impacts access to constituent letters.
- Findings support a model where syntactic processing influences early stages of word recognition.