Memory & cognition
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In a paradigm that avoids methodological problems of earlier studies, evidence was gathered addressed to the question of whether we read letter by letter. If word recognition involves letter recognition, then the difficulty of recognizing a word should vary with the difficulty of recognizing its letters. ⋯ Word frequency and word length were also manipulated. Results indicated no effect for letter difficulty, although recognition latency reliably decreased with word frequency and monotonically increased with word length (21 msec/letter), suggesting that we do not read letter by letter, but that whatever plays a role in word recognition is smaller than the word and correlated with word length in letters.
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A single-stimulation and two double-stimulation response conditions were compared using explicit payoff matrices to vary speed-accuracy tradeoff. Under accuracy payoff, response latency (RT(1)) to the first stimulus increased as ISI dropped but accuracy remained high and relatively constant. Under speed payoff, RT(1) was only slightly affected by ISI but accuracy dropped as ISI decreased. ⋯ Furthermore, error response latencies were found to be far more variable and more sensitive to changes in speed-accuracy condition than were correct response latencies. Finally, under both speed and accuracy conditions, response latency to the first of two successive stimuli was faster if a response was also required to the second stimulus. Implications of the data for possible models of double-stimulation speed-accuracy tradeoff are considered.