Does a pear growl? Interference from semantic properties of orthographic neighbors

In this study, we investigated whether semantic properties of a word’s orthographic neighbors are activated during visual word recognition. In two experiments, words were presented with a property that was not true for the word itself. We manipulated whether the property was true for an orthographic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Memory & cognition 2009-07, Vol.37 (5), p.541-546
Main Authors: Pecher, Diane, de Rooij, Jimmy, Zeelenberg, René
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attention
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Biological and medical sciences
Candidates
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive Psychology
Comprehension
Concept Formation
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Language
Production and perception of written language
Psycholinguistics
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time
Reading
Semantics
Studies
Word processing
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Summary:In this study, we investigated whether semantic properties of a word’s orthographic neighbors are activated during visual word recognition. In two experiments, words were presented with a property that was not true for the word itself. We manipulated whether the property was true for an orthographic neighbor of the word. Our results showed that rejection of the property was slower and less accurate when the property was true for a neighbor than when the property was not true for a neighbor. These findings indicate that semantic information is activated before orthographic processing is finished. The present results are problematic for the links model (Forster, 2006; Forster & Hector, 2002) that was recently proposed in order to bring form-first models of visual word recognition into line with previously reported findings (Forster & Hector, 2002; Pecher, Zeelenberg, & Wagenmakers, 2005; Rodd, 2004).
ISSN:0090-502X
1532-5946
DOI:10.3758/MC.37.5.541