Visual, orthographic, phonological, and lexical influences in reading.

Abstract

The fuzzy logical model of perception (FLMP), used as a framework to analyze phenomena in reading, asserts that there are multiple influences on reading performance. Experiments on the dynamic interaction of letter information and orthographic context are presented. Previous results have supported the FLMP over a Variety of interactive activation models. These findings indicated that lateral masking and the time course of processing must be accounted for in the theoretical prediction of letter and word recognition. A new finding is that the word superiority effect is not influenced by the nature of the backward masking stimulus, nor is it diminished with letter and word masks, contrary to the predictions of several extant explanations. The FLMP is extended to account for reaction time in reading. Perceptual recognition, naming, and lexical decision tasks reflect the influence of multiple sources of information. These include orthographic structure, spelling-to-speech correspondences, and word frequency. Reading can be productively analyzed as a prototypical pattern recognition situation in which the reader exploits multiple sources of information in perception and action.