The word superiority effect (WSE) denotes better recognition of a letter embedded in a word rather than in a pseudoword. Along with WSE, also a pseudoword superiority effect (PSE) has been described: It is easier to recognise a letter in a legal pseudoword than in an unpronounceable nonword. At the current state of the art, both WSE and PSE have been mainly tested with English speakers. This study uses the Reicher–Wheeler paradigm with native speakers of Italian (a shallow orthography language). Different from English and French, we found WSE for reaction times (RTs) only, whereas PSE was significant for both accuracy and RTs. This finding indicates that in the Reicher–Wheeler task, readers of a shallow orthography language can effectively rely on both the lexical and the sublexical routes. As to the effect of letter position, a clear advantage for the first-letter position emerged, a finding suggesting a fine-grained processing of the letter strings with coding of letter position and indicating the role of visual acuity and crowding factors.
AgrestiA. (2015). Foundations of linear and generalized linear models. New York, NY: John Wiley.
2.
BaayenR. H. (2008). Analyzing linguistic data: A practical introduction to statistics using R. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
3.
BaronJ.ThurstonI. (1973). An analysis of the word-superiority effect. Cognitive Psychology, 4, 207–228.
4.
BertinettoP.BuraniC.LaudannaA.MarconiL.RattiD.RolandoC.ThortonA. (2005). Corpus e lessico di frequenza dell’italiano scritto. Retrieved from http://www.istc.cnr.it/grouppage/databases
5.
CarrT. H.DavidsonB. J.HawkinsH. L. (1978). Perceptual flexibility in word recognition: Strategies affect orthographic computation but not lexical access. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 4, 674–690.
6.
CattellJ. M. (1886). The time it takes to see and name objects. Mind, 11, 63–65.
7.
ColtheartM.CurtisB.AtkinsP.HallerM. (1993). Models of reading aloud: Dual-route and parallel-distributed-processing approaches. Psychological Review, 100, 589–608.
8.
ColtheartM.DavelaarE.JonassonJ. F.BesnerD. (1977). Access to the internal lexicon. In DornicS. (Ed.), Attention & performance VI (pp. 535–555). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
9.
ColtheartM.RastleK. (1994). Serial processing in reading aloud: Evidence for dual-route models of reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 20, 1197–1211.
10.
ColtheartM.RastleK.PerryC.LangdonR.ZieglerJ. (2001). DRC: A dual route cascaded model of visual word recognition and reading aloud. Psychological Review, 108, 204–256.
11.
EstesW. K.BrunnJ. L. (1987). Discriminability and bias in the word-superiority effect. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 42, 411–422.
12.
FrankishC.BarnesL. (2008). Lexical and sublexical processes in the perception of transposed-letter anagrams. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 61, 381–391.
13.
GraingerJ.BertrandD.LeteB.BeyersmannE.ZieglerJ. C. (2016). A developmental investigation of the first-letter advantage. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 152, 161–172.
14.
GraingerJ.BouttevinS.TrucC.BastienM.ZieglerJ. (2003). Word superiority, pseudoword superiority, and learning to read: A comparison of dyslexic and normal readers. Brain and Language, 87, 432–440.
15.
GraingerJ.DufauS.ZieglerJ. C. (2016). A vision of reading. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20, 171–179.
16.
GraingerJ.JacobsA. M. (1994). A dual read-out model of word context effects in letter perception: Further investigations of the word superiority effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2, 380–385.
17.
GraingerJ.JacobsA. M. (1996). Orthographic processing in visual word recognition: A multiple read-out model. Psychological Review, 103, 518–565.
18.
GraingerJ.ZieglerJ. C. (2011). A dual-route approach to orthographic processing. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 541–513.
19.
GrossiG.MurphyJ.BogganJ. (2009). Word and pseudoword superiority effects in Italian-English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12, 113–120.
20.
HawkinsH. L.ReicherG. M.RogersM.PetersonL. (1976). Flexible coding in word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 2, 380–385.
21.
HooperD. A.PaapK. R. (1997). The use of assembled phonology during performance of a letter recognition task and its dependence on the presence and proportion of word stimuli. Journal of Memory and Language, 37, 167–189.
22.
HoxJ. J. (2010). Multilevel analysis: Techniques and applications. New York, NY: Routledge.
23.
JohnstonJ. C.McClellandJ. L. (1973). Visual factors in word perception. Perception & Psychophysics, 14, 365–370.
24.
KatzL.FrostR. (1992). The reading process is different for different orthographies: The orthographic depth hypothesis. Advances in Psychology, 94, 67–84.
25.
Liberman1. Y.LibermanA. M.Mattingly1. G.ShankweilerD. L. (1980). Orthography and the beginning reader. In KavanaghJ. F.VanezkyR. L. (Eds.), Orthography, reading and dyslexia (pp. 137–153). Baltimore, MD: University Park Press.
26.
LukatelaG.LorencB.OgnjenovićP.TurveyM. T. (1981). A word superiority effect in a phonetically precise orthography. Language and Speech, 24, 173–183.
27.
LupkerS. J.BrownP.ColomboL. (1997). Strategic control in a naming task: Changing routes or changing deadlines?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 23, 570–590.
28.
MarinelliC. V.TraficanteD.ZoccolottiP. (2014). Does pronounceability modulate the letter string deficit of children with dyslexia? A study with the rate and amount model. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, Article 1353. Doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01353
29.
MarzoukiY.GraingerJ. (2014). Effects of stimulus duration and inter-letter spacing on letter-in-string identification. Acta Psychologica, 148, 49–55.
30.
MassaroD. W.CohenM. M. (1994). Visual, orthographic, phonological, and lexical influences in reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 20, 1107–1128.
31.
McClellandJ. L. (1976). Preliminary letter identification in the perception of words and nonwords. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 1, 80–91.
32.
McClellandJ. L.JohnstonJ. C. (1977). The role of familiar units in perception of words and nonwords. Perception & Psychophysics, 22, 249–261.
33.
McClellandJ. L.RumelhartD. E. (1981). An interactive activation model of context effects in letter perception: I. An account of basic findings. Psychological Review, 88, 375–407.
34.
MerzichJ. J. (1973). The word superiority effect in brief visual displays: Elimination by vocalization. Perception & Psychophysics, 13, 45–48.
35.
PaapK.NewsomeS. L.McDonaldJ. E.SchvaneveldtR. W. (1982). An activation-verification model for letter and word recognition: The word superiority effect. Psychological Review, 89, 573–594.
36.
PaapK. R.JohansenL. S. (1994). The case of the vanishing frequency effect: A retest of the verification model. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 20, 1129–1157.
37.
PagliucaG.ArduinoL. S.BarcaL.BuraniC. (2008). Fully transparent orthography, yet lexical reading aloud: The lexicality effect in Italian. Language and Cognitive Processes, 23, 422–433.
38.
PaiziD.BuraniC.ZoccolottiP. (2010). List context effects in reading Italian words and nonwords: Can the word frequency effect be eliminated?European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 22, 1039–1065.
39.
ReicherG. M. (1969). Perceptual recognition as a function of meaningfulness of stimulus material. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 81, 275–280.
40.
RipamontiE.TraficanteD.CrippaF.LuzzattiC. (2014). Word superiority effect in a shallow orthography language: The role of hemispheric lateralization. Perceptual & Motor Skills, 118, 1–18.
41.
RumelhartD. E.McClellandJ. L. (1982). An interactive activation model of context effects in letter perception: II. The contextual enhancement effect and some tests and extensions of the model. Psychological Review, 89, 60–94.
42.
ScaltrittiM.BalotaD. A. (2013). Are all letters really processed equally and in parallel? Further evidence of a robust first letter advantage. Acta Psychologica, 144, 397–410.
43.
SelfridgeO. G. (1959). Pandemonium: A paradigm for learning. In Proceeding of a symposium on the echanization of thought processes (pp. 511–526). London, England: H.M. Stationery Office.
44.
TabossiP.LaghiL. (1992). Semantic priming in the pronunciation of words in two writing systems: Italian and English. Memory & Cognition, 20, 303–313.
45.
ToraldoA.CattaniB.ZoncaG.SalettaP.LuzzattiC. (2006). Reading disorders in a language with shallow orthography: A multiple single-case study in Italian. Aphasiology, 20, 823–850.
46.
TraficanteD.BuraniC. (2014). List context effects in languages with opaque and transparent orthographies: A challenge for models of reading. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 1023.
47.
Van HeuvenW. J.ManderaP.KeuleersE.BrysbaertM. (2014). SUBTLEX-UK: A new and improved word frequency database for British English. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 67, 1176–1190.
48.
WheelerD. D. (1970). Processes in word recognition. Cognitive Psychology, 1, 59–85.
49.
WhitneyC.CornelissenP. (2008). SERIOL reading. Language and Cognitive Processes, 23, 143–164.
50.
ZieglerJ. C.JacobsA. M. (1995). Phonological information provides early sources of constraint in the processing of letter strings. Journal of Memory and Language, 34, 567–593.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
