Phonological Recoding in Letter Detection

Abstract

Access to the mental lexicon through a phonological code derived from visually presented strings of letters was demonstrated by feedback from lexical entries enhancing the perceptibility of letters in the strings. The task required judging whether each of a number of briefly presented quadrigrams contained a D in the initial or terminal position. Four sets of four quadrigrams per set were used, with one pair in each set being phonologically similar and graphemically identical except at the target position (e.g., BAND/BANS) and the other pair being phonologically dissimilar but graphemically identical except at the target position (e.g., BIND/BINS). Within each set the letter at the opposite end of the string from the target position and the letter beside the target position were held constant to control for confusions and lateral interference. Performance was better on phonologically dissimilar pairs in all four sets, even though the phonological distinctiveness did not directly involve the sound of the target letter.