Effects of alternating letter case on processing sequences of written words - Aix-Marseille Université
Article Dans Une Revue Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Année : 2023

Effects of alternating letter case on processing sequences of written words

Colas Fournet
Jonathan Mirault
Manuel Perea
  • Fonction : Auteur

Résumé

In three grammatical decision experiments, we examined the impact of alternating letter case on sentence reading to determine the locus of case-alternation effects. Experiments 1 and 2 compared grammatical decision responses (“Is this a grammatically correct sequence of words or not?”) in three different conditions: (1) SAME CASE/same case; (2) alternating CASE between WORDS; and (3) aLterNaTing cAsE wItHin WoRdS. For the grammatically correct sequences, we observed significantly faster responses in the same-case conditions compared with the between-word case manipulation, as well as a significant advantage for the between-word condition compared with within-word alternating case. These results confirm that case-alternation deteriorates sentence reading, but more so at the level of single word processing (within-word alternation) than at the sentence level (between-word alternation). Experiment 3 demonstrated that between-word case-alternation facilitates sentence processing compared with an all-lowercase condition when betweenWORDspacesAREremoved. Therefore, in the absence of between-word spacing, case changes across words facilitate sentence processing, possibly by guiding readers’ eyes to optimal locations for word identification.
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Dates et versions

hal-04520678 , version 1 (25-03-2024)

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Citer

Colas Fournet, Jonathan Mirault, Manuel Perea, Jonathan Grainger. Effects of alternating letter case on processing sequences of written words. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 2023, 76 (10), pp.2346-2355. ⟨10.1177/17470218231156604⟩. ⟨hal-04520678⟩
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