Publication Date

1983

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Schwantes, Frederick M.

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Psychology

LCSH

Children--Language; Reading (Elementary)--Whole-word method; Word recognition

Abstract

The present study was conducted to investigate whether young readers can make use of the whole word as the unit of processing under conditions in which symmetry between the linguistic level of the target item and the items contained in the search field was varied. A visual search paradigm was used in which third- and college-grade subjects were required to search for either a predesignated.letter or word. The search field consisted of either a series of nine words or a series of letter-groups. Symmetry was varied across three search conditions: search for a word target item within a field of words, search for a letter target item within a field of words, and search for a letter target item within a field of letter-groups. For both age groups, mean search time was fastest for the word/word search condition. More importantly, mean search time was faster in the letter/word search condition as compared to the letter/letter-group search condition. These results were interpreted as being consistent with a word superiority effect for both age groups and indicated that even young readers can utilize the whole word as a perceptual unit.

Comments

Bibliography: pages 32-35.

Extent

vii, 89 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

Download

Share

COinS