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This article aims to provide an overview of the current status of visual word recognition research, from the main models and their current challenges, to the educational and methodological implications of studies in this field. Visual word recognition is a critical reading process that connects visual sensation and perception with linguistic (sentence, text) processing. For this reason, it has captured the interest of researchers in cognitive science. Importantly, it is particularly easy to model quantitatively and researchers have developed a number of computational models to explain the processes involved. Recent years have witnessed an increasing number of corpora in several languages, including average identification times of thousands of words, allowing virtual simulations of experiments to test the predictions of theoretical models without the recruitment of participants. Nevertheless, despite the advances achieved in the understanding of word processing, models still have outstanding questions to be answered, such as the role of visual information during word recognition, or how diacritics are represented at the letter level. On the applied side, word recognition research has also contributed to the improvement of educational techniques, such as the development of friendly fonts for different populations, along with methodological innovations in cognitive psychology, such as the use of linear-mixed effects models, Bayesian methods and multi-laboratory approaches.

This article aims to provide an overview of the current status of visual word recognition research, from the main models and their current challenges, to the educational and methodological implications of studies in this field. Visual word recognition is a critical reading process that connects visual sensation and perception with linguistic (sentence, text) processing. For this reason, it has captured the interest of researchers in cognitive science. Importantly, it is particularly easy to model quantitatively and researchers have developed a number of computational models to explain the processes involved. Recent years have witnessed an increasing number of corpora in several languages, including average identification times of thousands of words, allowing virtual simulations of experiments to test the predictions of theoretical models without the recruitment of participants. Nevertheless, despite the advances achieved in the understanding of word processing, models still have outstanding questions to be answered, such as the role of visual information during word recognition, or how diacritics are represented at the letter level. On the applied side, word recognition research has also contributed to the improvement of educational techniques, such as the development of friendly fonts for different populations, along with methodological innovations in cognitive psychology, such as the use of linear-mixed effects models, Bayesian methods and multi-laboratory approaches.

This is an examination of whether masked priming can be used in online experiment, using as a criterion the benchmark findings reported by Gomez, Perea, and Ratcliff (2013). This second registration amends the first to add a second experiment in which the 50 ms priming duration is replaced with a 16 ms priming duration condition.

This study is devised to examine whether there is perceptual noise associated with braille letter recognition. Brief rationale: Letter identification is a key ingredient of orthographic processing in alphabetic languages, understood to be a hierarchical process: from the detection of letter features to the activation of the letter's abstract representation (e.g., Dehaene et al., 2005). Previous research has shown that, during visual reading, there is perceptual noise regarding early processing of the identity of letters and words (e.g., using the masked priming technique obieto – objeto [object in Spanish] is responded faster than obaeto – objeto; Marcet & Perea., 2017, 2018). However, this early prime-target visual effect vanishes in visual lexical decision tasks with common words such as “violin”: the visually-similar item “viotin” yields similar responses than the visually-dissimilar item “viocin”; Perea & Panadero, 2014). Nonetheless, effects of visual similarity in lexical decision have been reported under some circumstances: readers with dyslexia (Perea & Panadero, 2014, using the same stimuli that failed to show an effect with normotypical developing and adult readers), and deaf readers (Gutiérrez-Sigut et al., 2021). Furthermore, visual similarity effects have also been reported with logotypes and brand names instead of common words (Pathak et al., 2019; Perea et al., 2021). Here, we aim to examine whether similarity effects can be found in tactile reading, hoping to shed some light on the generality of the perceptual noise associated with letter identification in word recognition.

This experiment aims to examine letter position coding in braille reading. Specifically, whether transposed-letter effects can be obtained for adjacent transpositions. Brief rationale: Visual reading research has shown that pseudowords generated by transposing two of the letters that make up a word, whether adjacent or nonadjacent, – for example, JUGDE or CHOLOCATE, respectively– are often confused for their base word – JUDGE or CHOCOLATE. This is referred to as the transposed-letter effect (e.g., Perea & Lupker, 2004), a critical marker of orthographic processing. Two main accounts have been proposed to explain this phenomenon: 1) the perceptual approach (e.g., Davis, 2010; Gomez et al., 2008; Norris & Kinoshita, 2012) suggests that there is uncertainty (or noise) associated with letter position due to the limitations of the visual system; therefore, the letters within a word activate, in addition to their own position, other nearby positions; 2) the orthographic approach (e.g., Grainger & Van Heuven, 2003; Whitney, 2001) states that the position of letters is coded later in processing, at a literacy-dependent level, where linguistic information is stored as letter pairs (i.e., open bigrams: contiguous and non-contiguous ordered letter pairs). The more open bigrams two strings of letters share, the greater the similarity between them (see also Duñabeitia et al., 2015, for an orthographic account without relying on open bigrams). Although many studies have been conducted to examine predictions of each of these approaches, the debate is very much alive. Reading braille involves scanning the text from left to right with the fingertips. This exposes a large difference at the perceptual level of braille reading compared to visual reading: its serial nature. Indeed, Perea et al. (2012), using a lexical decision task, found no transposed-letter effects (both in response times and accuracy) for non-adjacent transpositions. These findings suggest that letter position coding might be less uncertain when reading braille than when reading print. Nonetheless, it is still possible that the transposed-letter effect occurs for adjacent transpositions. Indeed, in the auditory modality, also of a serial nature, transposition effects have been found for adjacent transpositions but not for non-adjacent transpositions (e.g., Dufour & Grainger, 2021). Hence, the objective of this experiment is to analyze the circumstances under which transposition effects on braille word recognition occur and compare the results with those described in visual word recognition literature.

Masked priming is one of the most important paradigms in the study of visual word recognition, but it is usually thought to require a laboratory setup with a known monitor and keyboard. To test if this technique can be safely used in an online setting, we conducted two online masked priming lexical decision task experiments using PsychoPy/PsychoJS (Peirce et al., 2019). Importantly, we also tested the role of prime exposure duration (33.3 vs. 50 ms in Experiment 1 and 16.7 vs. 33.3 ms in Experiment 2), thus allowing us to examine both across conditions and within-conditions effects. We found that our online data are indeed very similar to the masked priming data previously reported in the masked priming literature. Additionally, we found a clear effect of prime duration, with the priming effect (measured in terms of response time and accuracy) being stronger at 50 ms than 33.3 ms and no priming effect at 16.7 ms prime duration. From these results, we can conclude that modern online browser-based experimental psychophysics packages (e.g., PsychoPy) can present stimuli and collect responses on standard end user devices with enough precision. These findings provide us with confidence that masked priming can be used online, thus allowing us not only to run less time-consuming experiments, but also to reach populations that are difficult to test in a laboratory. Sitio web de la revista (Consulta: 05-05-2022)

Brand names are often considered a special type of words of special relevance to examine the role of visual codes during reading: unlike common words, brand names are typically presented with the same letter-case configuration (e.g., IKEA, adidas). Recently, Pathak et al. (European Journal of Marketing, 2019, 53, 2109) found an effect of visual similarity for misspelled brand names when the participants had to decide whether the brand name was spelled correctly or not (e.g., tacebook [baseword: facebook] was responded more slowly and less accurately than xacebook). This finding is at odds with both orthographically based visual-word recognition models and prior experiments using misspelled common words (e.g., viotin [baseword: violin] is identified as fast as viocin). To solve this puzzle, we designed two experiments in which the participants had to decide whether the presented item was written correctly. In Experiment 1, following a procedure similar to Pathak et al. (European Journal of Marketing, 2019, 53, 2109), we examined the effect of visual similarity on misspelled brand names with/without graphical information (e.g., anazon vs. atazon [baseword: amazon]). Experiment 2 was parallel to Experiment 1, but we focused on misspelled common words (e.g., anarillo vs. atarillo; baseword: amarillo [yellow in Spanish]). Results showed a sizeable effect of visual similarity on misspelled brand names – regardless of their graphical information, but not on misspelled common words. These findings suggest that visual codes play a greater role when identifying brand names than common words. We examined how models of visual-word recognition can account for this dissociation. Sitio web de la revista (Consulta: 05-05-2022)

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-qjp-10.1177_17470218221142145 for Letter-similarity effects in braille word recognition by Ana Baciero, Pablo Gomez, Jon Andoni Duñabeitia and Manuel Perea in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Tesis. Defendida en 2022. Bibliografía: p. 255-260 [según contador de la aplicación] Abstract: Our ability to read has been of great interest to researchers in psychology and education since their inception as sciences (Huey, 1908; see Rayner et al., 2012, for a recent review). Reading involves processes that range from sensory to semantic: from receiving written information by our senses to understanding it and integrating it with prior knowledge. Although most research on reading processes has focused on reading through sight, it is also possible to read through touch using the braille writing system (typically used by individuals with visual impairment). This modality of reading is at the heart of the present dissertation. In particular, this work is intended to differentiate the mechanisms underlying reading that are specific to the sensory modality that receives linguistic information from those that are general (independent of the modality). To do this, I present a series of experiments designed to understand how blind readers encode the identity and position of letters in braille, thus allowing a comparison of orthographic processing in braille versus visual reading (in published literature). Investigating this issue is important not only to understand better the mechanisms underlying both braille reading and reading in general – helping to develop a universal theory of reading – but also to develop new techniques and methodologies that may improve braille teaching and learning. Nuestra capacidad para leer ha sido de gran interés para los investigadores en los campos de la psicología y la educación desde sus inicios como ciencias (Huey, 1908; véase Rayner et al., 2012, para una revisión reciente). La lectura requiere procesamientos que van desde lo sensorial hasta lo semántico: desde que recibimos la información escrita a través de nuestros sentidos hasta que la comprendemos e integramos con nuestro conocimiento previo. Aunque la mayoría de las investigaciones sobre los procesos que subyacen a la lectura se han centrado en esta habilidad a través de la vista, también es posible leer a través del tacto utilizando el sistema de escritura braille (generalmente utilizado por personas con discapacidad visual). Esta modalidad de lectura se sitúa en el corazón de la presente tesis doctoral. En particular, este trabajo pretende diferenciar los mecanismos subyacentes a la lectura que son específicos de la modalidad sensorial que recibe información lingüística, de aquellos que son generales (independientes de la modalidad). Para ello, se han llevado a cabo una serie de experimentos diseñados para comprender cómo los lectores ciegos codifican la identidad y posición de las letras en braille durante la lectura de palabras, permitiendo así una comparación del procesamiento ortográfico en braille frente a la lectura visual (literatura publicada). La investigación en este tema es importante no solo para comprender mejor los mecanismos subyacentes tanto a la lectura braille como a la lectura en general, ayudando así a desarrollar una teoría universal de la lectura, sino también para desarrollar nuevas técnicas y metodologías que puedan mejorar la enseñanza y el aprendizaje del braille. Ordenador con navegador de Internet ; Adobe Acrobat Reader 260 p. (Según el contador de la aplicación)

Companies and products are identified by their brand names, which are typically written with a specific letter style, color, and design (i.e., logos). This graphical information offers a distinctive image that facilitates their recognition. However, the uniqueness of these configuration cues may make brand names more vulnerable to counterfeiting via misspelling. We examined whether the confusability at detecting misspelled brand names is higher when embedded in the full logo than when presented in plain format (Experiment 1), when removing all graphical information of the logo other than typeface (Experiment 2), and when only modifying the typeface (Experiment 3). Participants had to decide whether the presented item was a correctly spelled brand name. The misspelled stimuli were created by either transposing or replacing two internal letters of popular brand names (amazon → amzaon vs. amceon), thus allowing us to have a measure of the transposed-letter confusability effect. Results showed a sizeable transposed-letter confusability effect for all types of brand names, but the effect was greatest for the misspelled full logos. Thus, the distinctiveness of the graphical information in logos has a deleterious side effect: logos are quite vulnerable to counterfeiting via misspelling branding. Sitio web de la revista (Consulta: 26-07-2021)

Numerous experiments in the past decades recurrently showed that a transposed-letter pseudoword (e.g., JUGDE) is much more wordlike than a replacement-letter control (e.g., JUPTE). Critically, there is an ongoing debate as to whether this effect arises at a perceptual level (e.g., perceptual uncertainty at assigning letter position of an array of visual objects) or at an abstract language-specific level (e.g., via a level of “open bigrams” between the letter and word levels). Here, we designed an experiment to test the limits of perceptual accounts of letter position coding. The stimuli in a lexical decision task were presented either with a homogeneous letter intensity or with a graded gray intensity, which indicated an unambiguous letter order. The pseudowords were either transposed-letter pseudowords or replaced-letter pseudowords (e.g., jugde vs. jupte). The results showed much longer response times and substantially more errors in the transposedletter pseudowords than in the replacement-letter pseudowords, regardless of visual format. These findings favor the idea that language-specific orthographic element factors play an essential role when encoding letter position during word recognition. Sitio web de la revista (Consulta: 29-07-2021)