Abstract
We employed the backward masking paradigm to map the early computation involved in the perception of printed words in Hebrew. By independently manipulating orthographic and phonological overlap between targets and masks, we examined whether orthographic and phonological structure imposes late or early constraints on lexical access. The results demonstrated that the probability of reinstating a masked target depended on both the orthographic and the phonological overlap between the target and the mask. However, whereas phonemic structure seems to constrain lexical access only at short exposure durations, orthographic overlap also exerts its influence at longer durations.
Article PDF
References
Berent, I., &Perfetti, C. A. (1995). A rose is a REEZE: The two-cycles of phonology assembly in reading English.Psychological Review,102, 146–184.
Coltheart, M., Curtis.B., Atkins, P., &Haller, M. (1993). Models of reading aloud: Dual-route and parallel-distributed-processing approaches.Psychological Review,100, 589–608.
Ferrand, L., &Grainger, J. (1992). Phonology and orthography in visual word recognition: Evidence from masked nonword priming.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,45A, 353–372.
Ferrand, L., &Grainger.J. (1993). The time course of orthographic and phonological code activation in the early phases of visual word recognition.Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society,31, 119–122.
Ferrand, L., &Grainger.J. (1994). Effects of orthography are independent of phonology in masked form priming.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,47A, 365–382.
Forster, K. I., &Davis, C. (1984). Repetition priming and frequency attenuation in lexical access.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,10, 680–698.
Frost, R. (1995). Phonological computation and missing vowels: Mapping lexical involvement in reading.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,21, 398–408.
Frost, R. (1998). Toward a strong phonological theory of visual word recognition: True issues and false trails.Psychological Bulletin,123, 71–99.
Frost, R., Katz, L., &Bentin, S. (1987). Strategies for visual word recognition and orthographical depth: A multilingual comparison.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,13, 104–115.
Grainger, J., &Ferrand, L. (1996). Masked orthographic and phonological priming in visual word recognition and naming: Cross-task comparisons.Journal of Memory & Language,35, 623–647.
Gronau, N., &Frost, R. (1997). Prelexical phonologic computation in a deep orthography: Evidence from backward masking in Hebrew.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,4, 107–112.
Humphreys, G. W., Evett, L. J., &Quinlan, P. T. (1990). Orthographic processing in visual word recognition.Cognitive Psychology,22, 517–560.
Katz, L., &Frost, R. (1992). Reading in different orthographies: The orthographic depth hypothesis. In R. Frost & L. Katz (Eds.),Orthography, phonology, morphology, and meaning (pp. 67–84). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Lee, H.-W., Rayner, K., &Pollatsek, A. (1999). The time course of phonological, semantic, and orthographic coding in reading: Evidence from the fast-priming technique.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,6, 624–634.
Lukatela, G., &Turvey, M. T. (1990). Automatic and prelexical computation of phonology in visual word identification.European Journal of Cognitive Psychology,2, 325–343.
Lukatela, G., &Turvey, M. T. (1994a). Visual access is initially phonological: 1. Evidence from associative priming by words, homophones, and pseudohomophones.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,123, 107–128.
Lukatela, G., &Turvey, M. T. (1994b). Visual access is initially phonological: 2. Evidence from associative priming by homophones and pseudohomophones.Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,123, 331–353.
Michaels, C. F., &Turvey, M. T. (1979). Central sources of visual masking: Indexingstructures supporting seeing at a single brief glance.Psychological Research,41, 1–61.
Paap, K. R., &Noel, R. W. (1991). Dual-route models of print to sound: Still a good horse race.Psychological Research,53, 13–24.
Perfetti, C. A., &Bell, L. C. (1991). Phonemic activation during the first 40 ms of word identification: Evidence from backward masking and masked priming.Journal of Memory & Language,30, 473–485.
Perfetti, C. A., Bell, L. C., &Delaney, S. M. (1988). Automatic (prelexical) phonetic activation in silent word reading: Evidence from backward masking.Journal of Memory & Language,27, 59–70.
Seidenberg, M. S. (1992). Beyond orthographic depth in reading: Equitable division of labour. In R. Frost & L. Katz (Eds.),Orthography, phonology, morphology, and meaning (pp. 85–118). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Sereno, S. C., &Rayner, K. (1992). Fast priming during eye fixations in reading.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,18, 173–184.
Tan, L. H., Hoosain, R., &Siok, W.W. T. (1996). Activation of phonological codes before access to character meaning in written Chinese.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,22, 865–882.
Tan, L. H., &Perfetti, C. A. (1998). Phonological codes as early source of constraint in Chinese word identification: A review of current discoveries and theoretical accounts. In C. K. Leong & K. Tamaoka (Eds.),Cognitive processing of the Chinese and Japanese languages (pp. 11–46). Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Tan, L. H., &Perfetti, C. A. (1999). Phonological and associative inhibition in the early stages of English word identification: Evidence from backward masking.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,25, 59–69.
Van Orden, G. C., &Goldinger, S. D. (1994). Interdependence of form and function in cognitive systems explains perception of printed words.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,20, 1269–1291.
Van Orden, G. C., Johnston, J. C., &Hale, B. L. (1988). Word identification in reading proceeds from spelling to sound to meaning.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,14, 371–386.
Van Orden, G. C., Pennington, B. F., &Stone, G. O. (1990). Word identification in reading and the promise of subsymbolic psycholinguistics.Psychological Review,97, 488–522.
Verstaen, A., Humphreys, G. W., Olson, A., &d’Ydewalle, G. (1995). Are phonemic effects in backward masking evidence for automatic prelexical phonemic activation in visua word recognition?Journal of Memory & Language,34, 335–356
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
The reported experiments were part of the master’s thesis submitted by O.Y. to the Department of Psychology. This study was supported in part by Israel Academy of Science Grant 94-00056 and in part by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Grant HD-01994.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Frost, R., Yogev, O. Orthographic and phonological computation in visual word recognition: Evidence from backward masking in Hebrew. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 8, 524–530 (2001). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196188
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196188