Transposed-letter effects as a function of the location of transpositions

Abstract

We examined how Transposed-Letter effects (TL effects: e.g., ASBENT, derived from ABSENT, compared to the substituted-letter [SL] control ALPENT) might vary as a function of the location of the TL effects relative to fixation. The positions of the TL and the initial fixation location (either at position 2 or 5 in 6-letter stimuli) were manipulated in a lexical decision task. Initial fixation remained centered on the screen while stimuli were shifted left or right. Six-letter stimuli were presented in lowercase (Experiment 1) or uppercase (Experiment 2), with critical stimuli being nonwords created by transposing consonants at positions 2–3 or 4–5 and compared with substituted-letter controls. Results showed stronger TL effects when the transpositions occurred farther from fixation. Implications of our findings for current models of letter-position coding are discussed, by emphasizing the important connection between letter visibility (vision) and orthographic processing (reading).