Abstract

When using the fovea, context plays an important role in reading. This includes the general gist of a story (Potter et al., 1980), the words within sentences (e.g. Forster, 1970; Morton, 1964, among others), and the letters within words (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981; Reicher, 1969; Rumelhart & McClelland, 1982; Wheeler, 1970). This latter is known as the Reicher-Wheeler effect, or the word-superiority effect (WSE). Specifically, the probability of correctly identifying a letter is greater when that letter is part of a word than when it is presented alone or as part of a random letter sequence.

© 2000 Optical Society of America