Word superiority effect

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In cognitive psychology, the word superiority effect (WSE) refers to a particular mental phenomenon, in which people recognize letters in the context of a word better than when the letter is presented in isolation. This effect was first described by J.M. Cattell (1886) , and important contributions came from Reicher (1969). It was further studied by Johnston and McClelland (1973). Large amounts of research have been done to try to emulate our own ability using computers to simulate the neural networks in the brain.

The word superiority effect has proven to be an important finding for word recognition models, and most specifically supports the Rumelhart and McClelland Activation model (Figure 1). According to this model, when presented with a word, each letter in parallel will stimulate or inhibit different feature detectors (eg. curved feature for "C", horizontal and vertical bars for "H", etc.). Those feature detectors would then stimulate or inhibit different letter detectors, which would then stimulate or inhibit different word detectors. Each activated connection would carry a different weight, and thus the word "WORK" in the example would be activated more than any other word.

This provides evidence for why the participants are more able to report the correct letter when presented within the context of a word, as opposed to a letter presented in isolation.

When the letter is presented in a word, the feature detectors, letter detectors and word detectors will be activated. However, when only the letter is presented, only the letter-detector level will be activated. Therefore, we will remember more clearly what the word presented was, and thereby its component letters

1 The Adverse Word Superiority Effect
2 How to Test the Word Superiority Effect
3 References
4 External links

[edit] The Adverse Word Superiority Effect

One of the findings of the Johnston and McClelland report was that the word superiority effect does not occur inevitably whenever we compare a word and a non-word. Rather it depends somewhat upon the strategies the subjects bring to the task they are performing. What Johnston and McClelland found was that if the subjects paid more attention to the letter in a particular position, they would experience the adverse word superiority effect. This is because the participant would no longer have the benefit of having the word detector level activated with as much weight if they had instead focused on the whole word.

[edit] How to Test the Word Superiority Effect

An example of how the word superiority effect can be tested can be seen in Figure 2. The participant should first be presented with a fixation dot to focus their attention on. A word or letter should then be flashed for ~40 milliseconds, and then be replaced by a mask of X's and 0's. This is to ensure that no ghost image can be seen on most CRT and some LCD monitors. The participant is then instructed to report which letter was seen in the particular position.

[edit] References

Sternberg, Robert J. (2006). Cognitive Psychology; fourth edition.
Crowder, Robert G. and Wagner, Richard K. (1992). The Psychology of Reading, second edition. p.79.
Harris, Margaret and Coltheart, Max. (1986) Language Processing in Children and Adults. p.155.
Francis, Greg, Neath, Ian, Mackewn, Angie, and Goldthwaite, Danalee. (2004). Belmont: Wadsworth, p.73-74.
Grainger, Jonathan, Sébastien Bouttevin, Cathy Truc, Mireille Bastien, and Johannes Ziegler. "Word superiority, pseudoword superiority, and learning to read: A comparison of dyslexic and normal readers." Brain and Language 66 (2003): 1105-1114. EBSCO. 27 January 2006.