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Using two-character Chinese word targets in a masked priming lexical-decision task, Gu and colleagues (2015) demonstrated a significant transposed character (TC) priming effect. More importantly, the priming effect was the same size for single-morpheme words and multiple-morpheme words, suggesting that TC priming effects are not influenced by morphemic structure. In Chinese, there are, however, two types of single-morpheme words, single-morpheme simple words (e.g., [similar to practice in English]) and single-morpheme complex words (e.g., [similar to carpet in English in that both components are words themselves and, hence, when presented in transposed order, may activate morphological information reflecting the individual components rather than the word itself]), a contrast that Gu et al. did not examine. In Experiment 1, we replicated Gu et al.'s finding of equal TC priming effects for their single- and multiple-morpheme words, although our priming effects were noticeably smaller than theirs. In Experiment 2, we split the single-morpheme condition in order to examine the TC priming effects for single-morpheme simple words, single-morpheme complex words and multiple-morpheme words. The results showed that the single-morpheme complex words produced the smallest priming effect, indicating that transposed morphemes can influence masked priming in Chinese; however, apparently only in an inhibitory fashion. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

The "recycling hypothesis" posits that the word recognition system is built upon minimal modifications to the neural architecture used in object recognition. In two masked priming lexical decision studies, we examined whether "mirror generalization," a phenomenon in object recognition, occurs in word recognition. In Study 1, we found that mirrored repetition and mirrored transposed letter primes elicited significant and equivalent priming effects for mirrored targets. In Study 2, we found that mirrored and non-mirrored repetition primes both significantly facilitated processing of mirrored targets, but the priming effect was much larger for non-mirrored primes. In both studies, we also found evidence of gender differences as females showed faster response times and a larger mirror priming effect compared to males. Taken together, we conclude that mirror generalization occurs in the early orthographic stage of word recognition, but not in the later stage of lexical access, and there is a gender difference when reading mirror words., (© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Using four-character Chinese word targets, Yang, Chen, Spinelli, and Lupker (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 45(8), 1511-1526, 2019) and Yang, Hino et al. (Journal of Memory and Language, 113, 104017, 2020) demonstrated that backward primes (Roman alphabet example-dcba priming ABCD) produce large masked priming effects. This result suggests that character position information is quite imprecisely coded by Chinese readers when reading in their native language. The present question was, If Chinese readers have evolved a reading system not requiring precise position information, would Chinese-English bilinguals show more extreme transposed letter priming effects when processing English words than both English monolinguals and other types of bilinguals whose L2 is English? In Experiment 1, Chinese-English bilinguals, but not English monolinguals, showed a clear backward priming effect in a lexical decision task. In Experiment 2, the parallel backward priming effect was absent for both Spanish-English and Arabic-English bilinguals. Apparently, the orthographic coding system that Chinese-English bilinguals use when reading in their L2 leans heavily on the flexible/imprecise position coding process that they develop for reading in their L1.

Most orthographic coding models are based on the assumption that the orthographic code does not distinguish between vowels and consonants and, therefore, those models predict no difference between vowel (cisano-CASINO) and consonant (caniso-CASINO) transposed-letter (TL) effects. The available data, however, do provide some evidence for a consonant-vowel distinction at the level of the orthographic code. Most centrally, masked priming lexical decision tasks, mainly carried out in Spanish, have shown priming from consonant TL primes (e.g., caniso) but not from vowel TL primes (e.g., cisano). The present experiments were an investigation of this pattern. Experiment 1, based on Schubert, Kinoshita, and Norris' (2018) stimuli which showed no consonant-vowel differences in an unprimed same-different task, also showed no consonant-vowel differences in masked TL priming effects in lexical decision showing, for the first time, a vowel TL priming effect in that task. Experiment 2, using Lupker, Perea, and Davis' (2008) Experiment 1a stimuli, also showed a small but significant vowel TL priming effect (a nonreplication of that experiment), while replicating the consonant TL priming effect that those authors originally reported. In Experiment 3, TL priming was again essentially unaffected by the consonant-vowel status of the letters involved as well as by target frequency, a variable on which the Experiment 1 and 2 stimuli differed. These results, supported by evoked response potential (ERP) results from other labs, suggest that consonant-vowel TL differences, when they do emerge in English, are likely are not due to the nature of the orthographic code. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Perceptual learning accounts of orthographic coding predict that transposed-letter (TL) priming effects should be smaller when the prime and target stimuli are not presented in their canonical (left-to-right horizontal in English) orientation (Dehaene, Cohen, Sigman, & Vinckier, 2005; Grainger & Holcomb, 2009). In contrast, abstract letter unit accounts would propose that TL priming effects should be essentially unaffected by presenting stimuli in most unfamiliar text orientations (Witzel, Qiao, & Forster, 2011). In the present experiments, we examined masked TL priming effects with primes and targets presented in 3 different text orientations (e.g., 0°, as well as 90° and 180° rotations). Results revealed that the magnitude of the TL priming effect with native English readers was equivalent for stimuli presented in these three orientations, providing support for abstract letter unit accounts of orthographic coding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Does visuospatial orientation influence repetition and transposed character (TC) priming effects in logographic scripts? According to perceptual learning accounts, the nature of orthographic (form) priming effects should be influenced by text orientation (Dehaene, Cohen, Sigman, & Vinckier, 2005; Grainger & Holcomb, 2009). In contrast, Witzel, Qiao, and Forster's (2011) abstract letter unit account argues that the mechanism responsible for such effects acts at a totally abstract orthographic level (i.e., the visuospatial orientation is irrelevant to the nature of the relevant orthographic code). The present experiments expanded this debate beyond alphabetic scripts and the syllabic Kana script used by Witzel et al. to a logographic script (Chinese). Experiment 1 showed masked repetition and TC priming effects with primes and targets presented in both the conventional left-to-right horizontal orientation and the vertical top-to-bottom orientation, replicating Witzel et al. Experiment 2 showed masked repetition and TC priming effects even when both the primes and targets were presented in the right-to-left orientation, a rare but existent text orientation in Chinese. In Experiment 3, the primes, but not the targets, were presented in the right-to-left orientation. Priming effects were again obtained regardless of the fact that the primes and targets appeared in different orientations. Experiment 4, which involved primes and targets presented in a completely novel bottom-to-top orientation, also produced a TC priming effect. These results support abstract letter/character unit accounts of form priming effects while failing to support perceptual learning accounts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Transposing two words in a sentence (e.g. "cat" and "was" in "the white cat was big") creates a sequence that is harder to classify as ungrammatical than control sequences (e.g. "the white was cat slowly"), suggesting that word position coding is noisy and can be affected by syntactic expectations. In the present research, this transposed-word effect was examined more closely using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) formats which provided either clear temporal cues to word order but no spatial cues, or both types of cues. Compared to when all words were presented simultaneously, the two RSVP formats reduced the transposed-word effect to the same degree while having no parallel impact on another ungrammatical comparison condition involving no transposition. These results are discussed in the context of serial and parallel models of reading as well as models that propose a later processing stage for the locus of the transposed-word effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]