1 Effect of Letter Order on Word Recognition Matt Moore and Sarah Pollom Hanover College

2 Original Cambridge Study Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

3 What is known… If first and last letter are in correct order it does not affect our comprehension of a word –We do not read every letter of a word –Exterior letters serving as visual cues Masking and Swapping –(McCusker, Gough, & Bias, 1981; Rawlinson, 1976) Jumbled words –i.e. hatospil, inmcoes, pintaet –(Oliver, Healy, & Mross, 2005)

4 Research Objective First, we are testing whether or not both the first and lest letter play a role in word recognition. Second, we are testing whether the first or last letter plays a more significant role in word recognition.

5 Design 2 x 4 repeated-measures design –Two independent variables Congruency Letter Order

6 Hypotheses Congruency –Faster reaction times for congruent versus incongruent conditions Letter order –Normal and first and last letter in correct order will produce the fastest reaction times –First letter only and last letter only in correct order will produce the slower reaction times

7 Method Participants –23 undergraduate students –65% female, 35% male –100% Caucasian –Range in age from years old –All claimed to be color normal

8 Materials Gateway computers w/ 14-inch LCD monitors –Operated by Windows XP Java 2 program –Accessed through Internet Explorer –Entitled the Stroop Experiment – y333.htmlhttp://psych.hanover.edu/classes/Cognition/ps y333.html

9 Stimuli 8 different stimuli –Congruent or Incongruent –Correct letter order, first and last in correct order, first letter only in correct order, last letter only in correct order –Black background –Central word orientation –16-point font size –Using yellow, orange, purple as the colors

10 Stimulus One Congruent and correct letter order

11 Stimulus Two Incongruent and correct letter order

12 Stimulus Three Congruent and first and last letter in correct order

13 Stimulus Four Incongruent and first and last letter in correct order

14 Stimulus Five Congruent and first letter in correct order

15 Stimulus Six Incongruent and first letter in correct order

16 Stimulus Seven Congruent and last letter in correct order

17 Stimulus Eight Incongruent and last letter in correct order

18 Procedure Participants completed all eight conditions (in any order) –Using the following settings : 25 Trials Responding to the color by pressing the relevant buttons at the bottom of the screen or by pressing the following keys: y for yellow, p for purple, and o for orange. (rework)

19 Results Congruency  F (1,22) = , p = 0.0 No main effect of letter order Interaction  F (3,66) = 3.722, p = 0.016

20 Discussion Our hypothesis supported the original Cambridge study. Our hypothesis did not support the (Oliver et al, 2005) study. –First letter only or last letter only did not have slower reaction times Letters not really jumbled/lack of sensitivity Can’t really make another word out of the colors (Andrews, 1996)

21 Limitations Effect of Practice –Completed 8 conditions (knew to only look at color) –Some participants had more familiarity with Stroop Effect Faulty Reaction Times

22 References Andrew, S. (1996). Lexical retrieval and selection processes: Effects of transposed-letter confusability. Journal of Memory and Language, 35(6), McCusker, L., Gough, P., & Bias, R. (1981). Word recognition inside out and outside in. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 7(3), Oliver, W., Healy, A., & Mross, E. (2005). Trade-offs in detecting letters and comprehending text. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 59(3), Rawlinson, G.E. (1976). The significance of letter position in word recognition. Unpublished PhD Thesis, Psychology Department, University of Nottingham, Nottingham UK.