Individual Differences in Visual Word Recognition: Insights from the English Lexicon Project

• Published in: Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance 2012-02, Vol.38 (1), p.53-79
• Main Authors: Yap, Melvin J, Balota, David A, Sibley, Daragh E, Ratcliff, Roger
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Analysis; Biological and medical sciences; Correlation; Databases, Factual; Dictionaries; English; Evidence; Experimental psychology; Eyes & eyesight; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Human; Humans; Individual Differences; Individuality; Insight; Internet; Language; Language Skills; Models, Psychological; Neuropsychological Tests; Pattern Recognition, Visual - physiology; Perception; Production and perception of written language; Pronunciation; Psycholinguistics - methods; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Reaction Time; Reaction Time - physiology; Reading; Reading Skills; Recognition; Recognition, Psychology - physiology; Reliability; Reproducibility of Results; Sensitivity; Sensory perception; Speech - physiology; Vision; Visual Perception; Visual word recognition; Vocabulary; Vocabulary Development; Word Recognition
• ISSN: 0096-1523; 1939-1277
• DOI: 10.1037/a0024177

Empirical work and models of visual word recognition have traditionally focused on group-level performance. Despite the emphasis on the prototypical reader, there is clear evidence that variation in reading skill modulates word recognition performance. In the present study, we examined differences among individuals who contributed to the English Lexicon Project (http://elexicon.wustl.edu), an online behavioral database containing nearly 4 million word recognition (speeded pronunciation and lexical decision) trials from over 1,200 participants. We observed considerable within- and between-session reliability across distinct sets of items, in terms of overall mean response time (RT), RT distributional characteristics, diffusion model parameters (Ratcliff, Gomez, & McKoon, 2004), and sensitivity to underlying lexical dimensions. This indicates reliably detectable individual differences in word recognition performance. In addition, higher vocabulary knowledge was associated with faster, more accurate word recognition performance, attenuated sensitivity to stimuli characteristics, and more efficient accumulation of information. Finally, in contrast to suggestions in the literature, we did not find evidence that individuals were trading-off their utilization of lexical and nonlexical information. (Contains 16 tables, 15 footnotes and 9 figures.)