Watching the Word Go by: On the Time-course of Component Processes in Visual Word Recognition

We describe a functional architecture for word recognition that focuses on how orthographic and phonological information cooperates in initial form-based processing of printed word stimuli prior to accessing semantic information. Component processes of orthographic processing and orthography-to-phonology translation are described, and the behavioral evidence in favor of such mechanisms is briefly summarized. Our theoretical framework is then used to interpret the results of a large number of recent experiments that have combined the masked priming paradigm with electrophysiological recordings. These experiments revealed a series of components in the event-related potential (ERP), thought to reflect the cascade of underlying processes involved in the transition from visual feature extraction to semantic activation. We provide a tentative mapping of ERP components onto component processes in the model, hence specifying the relative time-course of these processes and their functional significance.