Day 9 Psyc 432

• 1. The stimulus itself.
• 2. The constraints of the processing system, which are biased toward certain interpretations in each situation

Processing from all levels is potentially available to processes at other levels

Each module is encapsulated, and is ignorant of higher-level processing. The effect of top-down information occurs at a later decision stage.

• -Domain specific
• -Informationally encapsulated (Communication between modules is strictly bottom-up. Top-down processes are “guesses”, performed by the central processor)
• -Localized to a particular region of the brain.

• -2 lists of words and nonwords given separetely. Class identified words. List 1 had less frequently used words and List 2 had more frequently used words. List 2 was easier and faster.
• -Showed that words that are used more frequently are accessed quicker.

• 1. Frequency effect
• 2. Neighborhood Effect
• 3. Word Superiority
• 4. Context Effects

The higher the general frequency of usage of a word, the more quickly the word is recognized.

For WRITTEN words, recognition of low-frequency words is FASTER if they come from a large neighborhood (kind and king)

Better recognition of letter in a word than non-word or even letter in a word compared to a letter in isolation

• -recognition of words is faster when they are prefaced with semantically similar word
• -tells us if we have identified the correct word