A transposed-word effect on word-in-sequence identification

Yun Wen*, Jonathan Mirault, Jonathan Grainger

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The present study investigated transposed-word effects in a post-cued word-in-sequence identification experiment. Five horizontally aligned words were simultaneously presented for a brief duration and followed by a backward mask and cue for the position of the word to be identified within the sequence. The five-word sequences could form a grammatically correct sentence (e.g., The boy can run fast), an ungrammatical transposed-word sequence (e.g., The can boy run fast) or an ungrammatical control sequence (e.g., The can get run fast), and the same target word at the same position (e.g., the word ‘run’) was tested in the three conditions. Consistent with previous studies using a grammatical decision task and a same-different matching task, a transposed-word effect was observed, with word identification being more accurate in transposed-word sequences than in control sequences. Furthermore, here we could show for the first time that word identification was more accurate in correct sentences compared with transposed-word sequences. We suggest that the word identification advantage found for transposed-word sequences compared with ungrammatical control sequences is due to facilitatory feedback to word identities from sentence-level representations, albeit with less strength compared to the feedback provided by correct sentences.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2284-2292
Number of pages9
JournalPsychonomic Bulletin and Review
Volume29
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2022
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Interactive processing
  • Parallel processing
  • Rapid parallel visual presentation (RPVP)
  • Reading
  • Transposed words

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'A transposed-word effect on word-in-sequence identification'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this