| Perception: 4.5 | 1 of 1 | |
4.5 Visual word recognition
letters in words (.e.g., name the middle letter in "cat") can be identified more quickly than letters in nonwords (.e.g., name the middle letter in "sek") . McClelland & Rumelhart - an interactive activation model of context effects in letter perception: Part 1. An account of basic findings
McClelland and Rumelhart (1981) sought to develop a comprehensive account of the word superiority effect that could be simulated using a computer. The model provides a number of insights about what is happening during the recognition process. The interactive model consists of three levels corresponding to letter features, letters, and words. Activation of features from sensory input activate corresponding letters that contain those features. At the same time, the letters begin to activate words that are consistent with the letters. Feedback from the word level to the letter level enables decisions to be made faster about letters in words than in nonwords. Conversely, nonwords by definition cannot provide any top-down information to facilitate letter identification. The type of model that McClelland and Rumelhart describe was one of the first in cognitive psychology to incorporate a neural metaphor, the idea that information could be represented as a network of simple nodes. As well, the idea that the activation of these units could occur in parallel at different levels was made concrete in the interactive model. model accounts for basic findings in visual word recognition
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