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Position-invariant letter identification is a key component of any universal model of reading

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 August 2012

Jeffrey S. Bowers
Jeffrey S. Bowers*
Affiliation:
School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8-1TU, United Kingdom. j.bowers@bris.ac.ukhttp://psychology.psy.bris.ac.uk/people/jeffbowers.htm
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Abstract

A universal property of visual word identification is position-invariant letter identification, such that the letter “A” is coded in the same way in CAT and ACT. This should provide a fundamental constraint on theories of word identification, and, indeed, it inspired some of the theories that Frost has criticized. I show how the spatial coding scheme of Colin Davis (2010) can, in principle, account for contrasting transposed letter (TL) priming effects, and at the same time, position-invariant letter identification.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 35 , Issue 5 , October 2012 , pp. 281 - 282
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012 

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References

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