The role of transitional probabilities in word holistic processing

Abstract

In recent years, increased attention has been devoted to visual word recognition under a perceptual expertise framework. Because the information required to identify words is distributed across the word, a holistic attentional strategy is optimal and develops with experience. It is, however, an open question the extent to which other information embedded in a word may contribute to word holistic processing, namely sublexical word properties. In the present research, we therefore explore the role of sublexical properties-specifically bigram transition probabilities-in this processing strategy. We used a common task in the holistic processing literature (i.e., composite task) and four-letter disyllabic words, where two of the bigrams reinforce the cohesiveness of each syllable and one of the bigrams reinforces the cohesiveness between the syllables. We found preliminary evidence of a role of these sublexical properties in word holistic processing.

Keywords: bigrams; composite task; holistic processing; transitional probabilities; visual words.

Figure 1.

Events in a trial.

Figure 2.

(a) d′ for low versus high bigram TP words across alignment and congruency. (b) Depiction of the interaction of TP and congruency.

Figure 3.

(a) RT for low versus high bigram TP words across alignment and congruency. (b) Depiction of the interaction of Alignment × Congruency (RT).