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Letters in words are read simultaneously, not in left-to-right sequence

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Adelman, James S., Marquis, Suzanne J. and Sabatos-DeVito, Maura G.. (2010) Letters in words are read simultaneously, not in left-to-right sequence. Psychological Science, Vol.21 (No.12). pp. 1799-1801. ISSN 0956-7976

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797610387442

Abstract

The identification of individual letters is necessary for reading words in alphabetic
script (Pelli, Farell, & Moore, 2003). Sequential models of letter processing (Whitney,
2001) in reading words posit an initial left-to-right sequence of letter processing (in
left-to-right languages, such as English), each letter taking 10–25 ms to process before the
next is processed. In contrast, simultaneous models of letter processing (e.g., Tydgat &
Grainger, 2009) in reading words posit that information about the identity of each letter
starts to be extracted at the same time point, regardless of horizontal position. Here we
show that people reading four-letter words do not extract identity information for any
letter from an 18 ms display of the word, but some information about all four letters is
available from 24 ms of display. Our results indicate that a left-to-right sequence of
attention across letters is not used in establishing the cognitive representation of words.
Instead, all letters are processed simultaneously.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	Q Science > QP Physiology
Divisions:	Faculty of Science > Psychology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Reading -- Physiological aspects
Journal or Publication Title:	Psychological Science
Publisher:	Sage Publications, Inc
ISSN:	0956-7976
Official Date:	December 2010
Volume:	Vol.21
Number:	No.12
Page Range:	pp. 1799-1801
Identification Number:	10.1177/0956797610387442
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Funder:	Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) (ESRC)
Grant number:	RES-062-23-0545 (ESRC)
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URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/4533