Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Causes of Similarity-Dissimilarity Effect01:26

Causes of Similarity-Dissimilarity Effect

351
The similarity-dissimilarity effect, a fundamental concept in social psychology, explains how interpersonal similarities and differences influence attraction and social interactions. This effect is supported by three key psychological perspectives: balance theory, social comparison theory, and consensual validation.Balance Theory and Cognitive ConsistencyBalance theory, developed by Fritz Heider, posits that individuals seek cognitive consistency in their relationships. When two people share...
351
Correspondence Bias01:17

Correspondence Bias

345
Correspondence bias, also referred to as the fundamental attribution error, describes the tendency to attribute another person’s behavior to internal characteristics rather than situational influences. This cognitive bias leads individuals to overlook external factors that may be influencing actions, thereby fostering potentially inaccurate assessments of others’ intentions and dispositions.Empirical Evidence for Correspondence BiasResearch has consistently demonstrated the...
345
Factors Influencing Attraction III: Similarity01:23

Factors Influencing Attraction III: Similarity

985
The similarity hypothesis suggests that individuals are more likely to form relationships with others who share similar attitudes, beliefs, values, and interests. This concept has been widely studied in social psychology, demonstrating that perceived similarity fosters interpersonal attraction. In an experiment supporting this hypothesis, participants were presented with fabricated information indicating that strangers held attitudes similar to their own. The results showed that participants...
985
Sign Test for Matched Pairs01:17

Sign Test for Matched Pairs

477
The sign test for matched pairs offers a robust method for comparing two paired samples, often for the effects of an intervention in one of them. This method is very useful in situations where the underlying distribution of the data is unknown. The test compares two related samples—often pre- and post-treatment measurements on the same subjects—to determine if there are significant differences in their median values.
To conduct the sign test, we first calculate the differences in...
477
Cause and Effect01:53

Cause and Effect

12.7K
While variables are sometimes correlated because one does cause the other, it could also be that some other factor, a confounding variable, is actually causing the systematic movement in our variables of interest. For instance, as sales in ice cream increase, so does the overall rate of crime. Is it possible that indulging in your favorite flavor of ice cream could send you on a crime spree? Or, after committing crime do you think you might decide to treat yourself to a cone?
12.7K

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Associations Between Self-Reported Literacy and Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms in Children, Adolescents, and Older Adults.

Journal of learning disabilities·2026
Same author

Longitudinal and Bidirectional Relationships Between Reading Ability, Internalising Symptoms, and Academic Self-Concept in Adolescence: Evidence from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children.

Child psychiatry and human development·2026
Same author

The primed Stroop is not a Stroop task: Evidence from delta plots.

Memory & cognition·2026
Same author

The Validity and Reliability of the Reading Anxiety Test (RAT) for Children and Adolescents.

Assessment·2025
Same author

A Longitudinal Study of Reading and Mental Health Development in Children With Reported Ear and Hearing Difficulties.

Journal of speech, language, and hearing research : JSLHR·2025
Same author

Meaning composition in the processing of transposed-constituent compound nonwords.

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2025

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Apr 15, 2026

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color
10:27

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color

Published on: February 20, 2014

23.6K

Context-dependent similarity effects in letter recognition.

Sachiko Kinoshita1, Serje Robidoux2, Daniel Guilbert3

  • 1ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders (CCD), Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, 2109, Australia. sachiko.kinoshita@mq.edu.au.

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review
|April 10, 2015
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Visual similarity effects in letter recognition depend on task demands. The study demonstrates that letter primes facilitate recognition when discriminating between similar letters, supporting a dynamic evidence accumulation model of visual word recognition.

Keywords:
Abstract letter identityLetter identificationOrthographic processing

More Related Videos

Lexical Decision Task for Studying Written Word Recognition in Adults with and without Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment
06:48

Lexical Decision Task for Studying Written Word Recognition in Adults with and without Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment

Published on: June 25, 2019

10.0K
Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects
07:36

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Published on: November 30, 2018

16.6K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Apr 15, 2026

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color
10:27

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color

Published on: February 20, 2014

23.6K
Lexical Decision Task for Studying Written Word Recognition in Adults with and without Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment
06:48

Lexical Decision Task for Studying Written Word Recognition in Adults with and without Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment

Published on: June 25, 2019

10.0K
Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects
07:36

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Published on: November 30, 2018

16.6K

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Neuroscience
  • Computational Linguistics

Background:

  • Visual similarity between digit primes and letter targets aids word recognition.
  • Letter primes, unlike digit primes, have not consistently shown visual similarity effects in prior research.
  • The role of task context in visual word recognition remains an active area of investigation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the conditions under which visual similarity effects occur with letter primes in visual word recognition.
  • To determine if task demands, specifically the need to discriminate visually similar letters, influence the visual similarity effect.
  • To evaluate the findings within the framework of Bayesian models of perception and decision-making.

Main Methods:

  • Participants performed visual word recognition tasks using letter primes.
  • Experimental conditions manipulated the visual similarity between primes and targets.
  • Task demands were varied, specifically requiring discrimination between visually similar letters in some conditions.
  • Response times and accuracy were measured to assess letter identification facilitation.

Main Results:

  • A visual similarity effect was observed with letter primes when participants had to discriminate between visually similar letters.
  • This effect diminished or disappeared when such discrimination was not required.
  • Digit primes continued to show facilitation regardless of the discrimination task, consistent with prior findings.

Conclusions:

  • The visual similarity effect with letter primes is not a fixed phenomenon but is modulated by task context.
  • Findings support a dynamic evidence accumulation model where recognition is influenced by task-specific decision-making processes.
  • This challenges passive activation models and highlights the active, context-driven nature of visual word recognition.