The Adverse Word Superiority Effect
One of the findings of the Johnston and McClelland report was that the WSE does not occur inevitably whenever we compare a word and a nonword. Rather, it depends somewhat upon the strategies that readers use during a task. If readers paid more attention to the letter in a particular position, they would experience the adverse word superiority effect. This is because the reader would no longer have the benefit of having the word detector level activated with as much weight if they neglected to focus on the full word.
Read more about this topic: Word Superiority Effect
Famous quotes containing the words adverse, word, superiority and/or effect:
“[Religious establishment] is adverse to the diffusion of the light of Christianity ... [because] with an ignoble and unchristian timidity it would [be] circumscribed, with a wall of defence, against the encroachments of error.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“Our aversion to lying is commonly a secret ambition to make what we say considerable, and have every word received with a religious respect.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“Thus all probable reasoning is nothing but a species of sensation. ‘Tis not solely in poetry and music, we must follow our taste and sentiment, but likewise in philosophy, When I am convinc’d of any principle, ‘tis only an idea which strikes more strongly upon me. When I give the preference to one set of arguments above another, I do nothing but decide from my feeling concerning the superiority of their influence.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)