AN INVESTIGATION OF THE PROCESS OF WORD RECOGNITION

Abstract

Two experiments were conducted to examine parameters of the process of word recognition. In both experiments, subjects were required to guess the identity of words from which letters were exposed. In the first experiment, independent variables were frequency of occurrence in the language of stimulus words, number of letters selected from the words, and the position of the letters within the words. All three variables yielded significant effects. Connotative meaning of the stimulus words and the number of letters exposed from the beginning of the words were varied in the second experiment. As in the first experiment, the effect due to number of letters was significant. Connotative meaning, however, did not contribute significantly to subjects’ recognition latencies.