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Interaction between Phonological and Semantic Processes in Visual Word Recognition using Electrophysiology
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Parallel processing of whole words and morphemes in visual word recognition
Elisabeth Beyersmann1, Max Coltheart, Anne Castles
1ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia. lisi.beyersmann@mq.edu.au
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (2006)
|May 1, 2012
Summary
This study reveals that English readers process complex words by accessing both whole words and their component morphemes simultaneously during visual word recognition, supporting a hybrid model.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Cognitive Psychology
- Computational Linguistics
Background:
- Models of morphological processing differ on whether complex words are decomposed into morphemes or accessed as whole units.
- The timing of semantic influence on morphological processing remains debated.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate initial visual word recognition of morphologically complex words.
- To differentiate between whole-word access and morphological decomposition theories.
Main Methods:
- Used unprimed and masked primed lexical decision tasks.
- Compared truly suffixed (e.g., darkest) and pseudosuffixed (e.g., glossary) words.
- Analyzed transposed-letter similarity effects and stem target priming.
Main Results:
- Transposed-letter effects occurred regardless of morphological boundaries, indicating direct whole-word access.
- Both true and pseudosuffixed primes equally facilitated stem-target recognition, suggesting early morpho-orthographic decomposition.
Conclusions:
- Visual word recognition involves both direct whole-word access and early morphological decomposition.
- Findings support a hybrid model integrating both processing routes.
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