The Word Superiority Effect ( Wse ) - 1355 Words

Abstract The word superiority effect (WSE), recognition of letters better in words than non-words, has been observed in normal adults, but is not observed in studies done with normal children. The supported theory is that this is caused by the development of top down processing sometime during the children’s growth. A Reicher-Wheeler task will be conducted on normal children in 5 different age groups as well as adults. The expected results are to see an increasing WSE as the age of the children increases. Key Words: Word Superiority Effect, Pseudoword Superiority Effect, Reicher Wheeler, Top Down Processing, Children, Adults. Top Down Processing Development: Reicher Wheeler Task Results of Middle to Late Childhood Age Children The word superiority effect (WSE) is the phenomenon that subjects are more likely to recognize a letter accurately in a word (WINGS) than in a psuedoword, strings of letters that follow known language rules and are pronounceable (WUNGS), a non-word, strings of letters that do not follow known language rules and are not pronounceable (WCHDS), or just in a mask (TXXXX) (Coch, 2010; Grainger, 2003; Jordan, 1996). This is observed through The Reicher-Wheeler Paradigm. In this test a subject is shown a string of letters and asked to identify the letter in a specific location using a forced choice task (Grainger, 2003; Hildebrandt, 1995; Jordan 1996). The effect has been observed in many empirical studies, and has been seen in adults across