One of the most replicated effects in the contemporary word recognition literature is the transposed-letter effect (TL effect): pseudowords created by the transposition of two letters (e.g., MOHTER) are often misread as the real word. This effect ruled out those accounts that assume that letter position is encoded accurately and led to more flexible coding schemes. Here, we examined whether reading skill modulates this effect. The relationship between reading skill and the TL effect magnitude is a contentious issue both empirically and theoretically. The present lexical decision experiment was designed to shed some light on the relationship between reading skill and the TL effect magnitude with a large sample of Grade 6 children. To that end, we conducted both multiple regression and path analyses. Results showed that a specific aspect of reading skills (pseudoword reading) negatively correlates with the TL effect’s magnitude in the error data (i.e., MOHTER is less wordlike for better readers). This finding highlights the need for a comprehensive visual-word recognition model that includes individual variability and the multidimensional character of reading in school-age children.

A number of experiments have shown that, in skilled adult readers, a small increase in interletter spacing speeds up the process of visual word recognition relative to the default settings (i.e., judge faster than judge). The goal of the present experiment was to examine whether this effect can be generalized to a more ecological scenario: text reading. Each participant read two stories (367 words each) taken from a standardized reading test. The stories were presented with the standard interletter spacing or with a small increase in interletter spacing (+1.2 points to default) in a within-subject design. An eyetracker was used to register the participants’ eye movements. Comprehension scores were also examined. Results showed that, on average, fixation durations were shorter while reading the text with extra spacing than while reading the text with the default settings (237 vs. 245 ms, respectively; η2 =. 41, p = .01). However, the number of fixations (while nonsignificant) was slightly higher in the text with extra spacing than in the text with the default spacing, and cancelled out the effect of interletter spacing in total reading times (F < 1). Comprehension scores were similar in the two spacing conditions (F < 1). Thus, at least for skilled adult readers, interletter spacing does not seem to play a consistently facilitative role during text reading.

The masked priming technique (which compares #####-house-HOUSE vs. #####-fight-HOUSE) is the gold-standard tool to examine the initial moments of word processing. Lupker and Davis showed that adding a pre-prime identical to the target produced greater priming effects in the sandwich technique (which compares #####-HOUSE-house-HOUSE vs #####-HOUSE-fight-HOUSE). While there is consensus that the sandwich technique magnifies the size of priming effects relative to the standard procedure, the mechanisms underlying this boost are not well understood (i.e., does it reflect quantitative or qualitative changes?). To fully characterise the sandwich technique, we compared the sandwich and standard techniques by examining the response times (RTs) and their distributional features (delta plots; conditional-accuracy functions), comparing identity versus unrelated primes. The results showed that the locus of the boost in the sandwich technique was two-fold: faster responses in the identity condition (via a shift in the RT distributions) and slower responses in the unrelated condition. We discuss the theoretical and methodological implications of these findings.

In the quest to unveil the nature of the orthographic code, a useful strategy is to examine the transposed-letter effect (e.g., JUGDE is more confusable with its base word, JUDGE, than the replacement-letter nonword JUPTE). A leading explanation of this phenomenon, which is line with models of visual attention, is that there is perceptual uncertainty at assigning letters ("objects") to positions. This mechanism would be at work not only with skilled readers but also with preliterate children. An alternative explanation is that the transposed-letter effect emerges at an orthographic level of processing as a direct consequence of literacy training. To test these accounts, we conducted a same-different matching experiment with preliterate 4-year-old children using same versus different trials (created by letter transposition or replacement). Results showed a significantly larger number of false positives (i.e., "same" responses) to transposed-letter strings than to 1/2 replacement-letter strings. Therefore, the present data favor the view that the visual processing of location information is inherently noisy and rule out an interpretation of confusability in letter position coding as emerging from literacy training. (PsycINFO Database Record