The locus of the word-priority effect in a target-detection task.

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Human Information Processing

Background:

• The word-priority effect describes faster reaction times for word targets compared to letter targets within words.
• Two main hypotheses explain this effect: word encoding completion before letter encoding, or longer comparison times for letter targets.

Purpose of the Study:

• To differentiate between encoding and comparison stage explanations for the word-priority effect.
• To examine the influence of target set size and display illumination on this effect.

Main Methods:

• Subjects performed word and letter target-detection tasks.
• Target set size and display illumination were manipulated.
• Sternberg's additive factor approach was used to analyze reaction time data.

Main Results:

• The word-priority effect magnitude increased with larger target set sizes.
• Display illumination did not significantly affect the word-priority effect.
• Interactions between factors suggested a specific processing stage.

Conclusions:

• The results support the hypothesis that the word-priority effect arises from the comparison stage of information processing.
• This indicates that comparing letter targets to encoded displays is more time-consuming than comparing word targets.