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Effect of Letter Order on Word Recognition

Matt Moore and Sarah Pollom

Hanover College

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Original Cambridge Study

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr

the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit

porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the

wrod as a wlohe.

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What is known…

• If first and last letter are in correct order it does not affect our comprehension of a word – We do not read every letter of a word – Exterior letters serving as visual cues

• Masking and Swapping

– (McCusker, Gough, & Bias, 1981; Rawlinson, 1976)

• Jumbled words – i.e. hatospil, inmcoes, pintaet – (Oliver, Healy, & Mross, 2005)

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Research Objective

• First, we are testing whether or not both the first and lest letter play a role in word recognition.

• Second, we are testing whether the first or last letter plays a more significant role in word recognition.

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Design

• 2 x 4 repeated-measures design – Two independent variables

• Congruency • Letter Order

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Hypotheses

• Congruency

– Faster reaction times for congruent versus incongruent conditions

• Letter order – Normal and first and last letter in correct order

will produce the fastest reaction times – First letter only and last letter only in correct

order will produce the slower reaction times

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Method

• Participants

– 23 undergraduate students

– 65% female, 35% male

– 100% Caucasian

– Range in age from 18-22 years old

– All claimed to be color normal

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Materials

• Gateway computers w/ 14-inch LCD monitors – Operated by Windows XP

• Java 2 program – Accessed through Internet Explorer – Entitled the Stroop Experiment– http://psych.hanover.edu/classes/Cognition/ps

y333.html

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Stimuli

• 8 different stimuli – Congruent or Incongruent – Correct letter order, first and last in correct

order, first letter only in correct order, last letter only in correct order

– Black background– Central word orientation – 16-point font size– Using yellow, orange, purple as the colors

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Stimulus One

Congruent and correct letter order

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Stimulus Two

Incongruent and correct letter order

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Stimulus Three

Congruent and first and last letter in correct order

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Stimulus Four

Incongruent and first and last letter in correct order

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Stimulus Five

Congruent and first letter in correct order

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Stimulus Six

Incongruent and first letter in correct order

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Stimulus Seven

Congruent and last letter in correct order

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Stimulus Eight

Incongruent and last letter in correct order

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Procedure

• Participants completed all eight conditions (in any order) – Using the following settings:

• 25 Trials• Responding to the color by pressing the

relevant buttons at the bottom of the screen or by pressing the following keys: y for yellow, p for purple, and o for orange. (rework)

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Results

0

500

1000

1500

Letter Order

Mean

Reacti

on

Tim

e (

ms)

Congruent

Incongruent

Congruency F (1,22) = 40.381, p = 0.0

No main effect of letter order

Interaction F (3,66) = 3.722, p = 0.016

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Discussion

• Our hypothesis supported the original Cambridge study.

• Our hypothesis did not support the (Oliver et al, 2005) study.– First letter only or last letter only did not

have slower reaction times • Letters not really jumbled/lack of sensitivity • Can’t really make another word out of the

colors (Andrews, 1996)

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Limitations

• Effect of Practice– Completed 8 conditions (knew to only

look at color)

– Some participants had more familiarity with Stroop Effect

• Faulty Reaction Times

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References• Andrew, S. (1996). Lexical retrieval and selection

processes: Effects of transposed-letter confusability. Journal of Memory and Language, 35(6), 775-800.

• McCusker, L., Gough, P., & Bias, R. (1981). Word recognition inside out and outside in. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 7(3), 538-551.

• Oliver, W., Healy, A., & Mross, E. (2005). Trade-offs in detecting letters and comprehending text.

Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 59(3), 159-167.

• Rawlinson, G.E. (1976). The significance of letter position in word recognition. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Psychology Department, University of Nottingham, Nottingham UK.