Abstract
Subjects indicated whether two letters, two words, or a letter and the first letter of a word were the same. Letter targets were matched more quickly than word targets when the stimuli were presented simultaneously. When the target and comparison stimuli were separated by a 3-sec interval, word targets were matched more quickly than a letter and a letter in a word. It was also shown that the physical similarity of the targets and comparison stimuli had a greater effect in the simultaneous matching conditions. These findings are consistent with a model of word processing in which letters are individually compared prior to word identification at a physical level of processing. At a higher level of processing, words may be encoded as a unit, and the identification of the letters within the word may require a decoding of the word unit.
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This research is based on a dissertation submitted to tire Department of Psychology, the Ohio State University, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the PhD degree.
An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BF03197376.
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Marmurek, H.H.C. Processing letters in words at different levels. Memory & Cognition 5, 67–72 (1977). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209194
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209194