Word-superiority effect

The study of Reicher (1969):

With a tachistoscope, the author presented very

briefly four-letter words (e.g., WORD), four-letter

nonwords composed of the same letters as the

words (e.g., OWRD), and single letters (e.g., D),

and then masked.

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Word-superiority effect

After each presentation of a stimulus, he presented

two letters, the one presented in the stimulus

before, and a new one. Participants had to choose

the letter presented before. The word stimuli were

chosen so that there was another word which

contains the other letter. For example, if the word

WORD was shown, and the test stimuli were D and

K, the other word was WORK.

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Word-superiority effect

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PONY D Y

The right letter was Y, the word shown was PONY, the

possible alternative word POND.

The right letter was E.The right letter was D, the nonword shown was OWRD, the

possible alternative nonword OWRK (from WORK).

OWRD D KE D E

We see next an idealized demonstration of the experiment. The presentation time for the stimulus

is too long.Please look at the cross in the center of the screen:

Word-superiority effect

Reicher found that the letters were

chosen with higher accuracy after a

word rather a nonword was shown.

More surprisingly, participants chose

letters with higher accuracy after a

word rather a single letter was shown.

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Word-superiority effect

This effect has been named the word-superiority

effect and demonstrates the role of top-down

processing in object identification:

A word is a context in which the letter is embedded;

this context facilitates word identification, in

comparison to the presentation of a single letter.

The effect can be obtained with presentations on a

computer screen (Prinzmetal, 1992).

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