Sandwich Anyone? Evaluating the (flexible) role of letter order in word recognition

An important question in visual word processing is how letter order impacts upon word recognition. Recent findings have suggested that transposed letter primes (rnik-rink) activate their targets in the same way as primes which more closely overlap letter position (pink-rink), meaning that letter order may be more flexible than previously thought. Lupker and Davis (2009) have proposed a new method for capturing these transposed letter effects - Sandwich masked priming - as better able to assess the larger range of words now deemed 'similar'. Our study aims to evaluate this technique for validity by replicating facilitation and interference for transposed letter primes where expected. With the overarching focus of the study on how transposed letter primes are processed and the broader implications of letter order in word recognition. In this study, eighty –five University of Queensland first year psychology students were randomly allocated to one of three experimental groups. Results failed to support Sandwich masked priming as a robust method of assessing priming, however support for letter order as flexible was found. An additional factor which may influence how written representation of words are categorised as 'similar' within our word recognition system was also identified