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Carrasco, M., Kinchla, R.A., & Figueuroa,
J.G. (1988). Visual letter-matching and the time course of visual
and acoustic codes. Acta Psychologica, 69: 1-17.
Abstract
Two experiments on visual letter-matching have been widely cited
in the literature as indicating a role of acoustic codes in such tasks.
Posner and Mitchell (1967) concluded that a visual code is sufficient
to compare two identical letters (e.g., AA), whereas a slower forming
acoustic code is required to compare nonidentical letters, whether with
the same name (e.g., Aa) or with different names (e.g, AB or aB). Thorson,
Hochhaus, and Stanners (1976) asked subjects to compare sequentailly presented
letter pairs and found that visual confusability increased latencies at
short delays (ISLs), whereas acoustic confusability increased latencies
at longer delays. Our original objective was to use these paradigms to
reveal differences in processing by English and Spanish speakers (Spanish
has a much more direct grapheme-phoneme correspondence). Extensive testing
of both native English and Spanish speakers reveals a highly consistent
pattern of results that clearly differs from those reported in the aforementioned
papers. The new data fail to indicate any role of acoustic codes in such
tasks.
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