9 | Visual word recognition

Question 1

Context effects

Answer 1

The more constraining the context, the faster and more reliable the recognition of a word

Question 2

Word superiority effect

Answer 2

Not only is it easier to identify words than nonwords, but the recognition of letters within a string of letters is easier and more accurate if the string constitutes an existing word

The recognition of the letter is easier in than

Question 3

Word length effect

Answer 3

The size of the word, measured in terms of its length in letters, affects participants’ memories for words they have seen, as well as recognition times for individual words

Question 4

Frequency effect

Answer 4

High-frequency words are recognised more easily and more reliably than low-frequency words

Question 5

Regularity effect

Answer 5

Concerns the relationship between spelling and pronunciation

Visually presented words with a regular spelling-sound correspondence are easier to process than those with an irregular correspondence

usually sounds like <i>, therefore is a regular word and is not
</i>

Question 6

Neighbourhood effects

Answer 6

In the case of visual word recognition, neighbours are words with similar spelling patterns to the target word
, ,

Number of properties are relevant for visual word recognition:

• Neighbourhood size or density
• Lexical frequency characteristics

Generally, low-frequency words are more affected than high-frequency words