Some Factors in the Recognition of Tachistoscopically Presented Alphabetical Arrays

Abstract

Six-letter nonsense arrays, constructed from a 12-letter population which was not made known to 20 Ss, were tachistoscopically shown successively in the right visual field (RVF) and left visual field (LVF) at three displacements from a central fixation point. Recognition scores were higher for stimuli in the RVF at each displacement. In each case RVF superiority was limited to letters in the first array-half (letters 1, 2, 3). These results agree with prior findings obtained with targets made up of six letters known to S (Fudin, 1969). Reportability of a tachistoscopically exposed letter, in part, is a function of the relationship between its retinal location and the delay before it is scanned. Location determines the amount of information a letter contains before it starts to fade-out (the more acute the area, the greater the information), delay determines the period of information dissipation prior to scanning. These ideas were used to explain the contrast between high error scores for middle-array letters in the bow-shaped error curves found in this experiment and the low values often reported for these letters when targets are shown across fixation, and the finding that the difference between error scores for letters in the first and second array-halves was greater for targets at each displacement in the right than the left visual field.