The role of lateral masking and orthographic structure in letter and word recognition.

The present experiments evaluated the contribution of orthographic structure and lateral masking in the Pemption of letter, word, and nonword test displays. Performance was tested in a backward recognition masking experiment in which a masking stimulus followed the test display after a variable blank interstimulus interval. In agreement with previous findings across different experiments, wards were recognized better than single letters at short interstimulus intervals, but the opposite was the case at long intervals. Performance on the nonword’s resembled performance on letters at short masking intervals and performance on words at long masking interwls. The quantitative results were described by a processing model that incorporates the effects of.lateral masking and orthographic structure in the dynamic processing of letter strings. Lateral masking tends to lower the potential perceptibility of letters whereas orthographic structure can reduce the uncertainty of the candidate letters in the letter sequence. The present model predicts that the quantitative contribution of each of these processes to performance is critically dependent upon the processing time available before the onset of the masking stimulus.