Abstract
The possible role of positional uncertainty as a basis for lateral masking and the perceptual superiority of words was examined. The stimuli were five-letter strings, of which the middle three letters were the targets and the end letters were distracting flankers which were positioned either adjacent to the target or separated from it. The trigram targets were of three types (words, pseudowords, and nonwords). The positional uncertainty of individual letters was varied through the use of two response modes, with 18 college students participating in each mode. One group used a response mode which did not allow transpositions of letter sequence, while the other group had no such restriction. The results showed that positional uncertainty affected the magnitude of lateral masking but not that of the word superiority effect, suggesting that different processes underlie these two phenomena. Error analyses within response mode as well as response bias comparisons further confirmed this conclusion.
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Estes, W. Colloquium presentation at the Johns Hopkins University, February 1975.
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This work was supported by an N.I.M.H. predoctoral research fellowship and by a contract from the Office of Naval Research.
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Geoffrion, L.D. Positional uncertainty in lateral masking and the perceptual superiority of words. Perception & Psychophysics 19, 273–278 (1976). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03204181
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03204181