Alphabet priming in bi-alphabetical word perception

• Published in: Journal of memory and language Vol. 28; no. 2; pp. 237 - 254
• Main Authors: Lukatela, G, Turvey, M.T, Feldman, Laurie B, Carello, Claudia, Katz, L
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: San Diego, CA Elsevier Inc 01.04.1989; Elsevier; Academic Press
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Language; Production and perception of written language; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Human; Letter; Lexicons; Word; Language; Serbocroatian; Language perception; Vision; Phonology; Ambiguity; Visual perception
• ISSN: 0749-596X; 1096-0821
• DOI: 10.1016/0749-596X(89)90046-6

Serbo-Croatian is transcribed in two partially overlapping alphabets. Some shared letters are pronounced differently in the two alphabets. Consequently, a word composed of shared ambiguous and unambiguous letters and no alphabetically unique letters is phonologically ambiguous. Ordinarily, visual recognition of such words is slowed relative to appropriately controlled, phonologically unambiguous words. Experiments showed that this phonological ambiguity effect is reduced substantially and equally by either a consonant string or a word that immediately precedes the target and specifies its alphabet. Alphabetic priming was also found for targets that contain both ambiguous and unique letters but not for targets without ambiguous letters. Other evidence showed, however, that alphabet priming can be offset by accessed lexical information. Results were discussed in terms of a connectionist model.