Perceptual Interactions in Two-Word Displays: Familiarity and Similarity Effects

• Published in: Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance 1986-02, Vol.12 (1), p.18-35
• Main Authors: McClelland, James L, Mozer, Michael C
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Biological and medical sciences; Familiarity; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Human Information Storage; Humans; Language; Middle Aged; Models, Psychological; Production and perception of written language; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Psychophysics; Reading; Stimulus Similarity; Visual Perception; Words (Phonetic Units)
• ISSN: 0096-1523; 1939-1277
• DOI: 10.1037/0096-1523.12.1.18

Previous studies have demonstrated the existence of perceptual interactions in the processing of two-word displays such as SAND LANE . When postcued to report one of the two words, subjects often make migration errors, in that the report of the specified word includes a letter of the other word (e.g., LAND or SANE instead of SAND ). We find that migrations depend on the abstract, structural similarity of the strings, but not on the physical similarity; on whether the strings are words; and on whether the possible migration responses are words. We also rule out an interpretation of migration errors that attributes them to a guessing strategy. Our findings are interpreted in terms of models in which both strings simultaneously access high-level structural knowledge, that is, knowledge about what sequences of letters fit together to form familiar wholes.