Abstract

We examined orthographic and phonological computation of words and nonwords while focusing on the pseudohomophone test in masked presentations. The priming manipulation consisted of linearly increasing or decreasing orthographic and phonological similarity between the primes and the targets. We employed a psychophysical approach, presenting subjects with mass amount of trials, while varying parameters of exposure duration and luminance. The results suggest that phonological priming effects in brief exposure durations are robust, not fragile, and can be demonstrated for words as well as for nonwords. Moreover, the effects are not restricted to a narrow window of energy, and are revealed in a wide range of SOAs and luminance conditions. However, since the computed phonological code is initially coarse-grained, substantial phonological contrasts are required to obtain phonological effects under masked presentation.

Citations