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(A) The Roman letters, Chinese characters, and pseudoletters used in Experiment 1 and (B) a sample trial sequence in the R/RC condition.
Source publication
Perceptual expertise, even within the visual domain, can take many forms, depending on the goals of the practiced task and the visual information available to support performance. Given the same goals, expertise for different categories can recruit common perceptual resources, which could lead to interference during concurrent processing. We measur...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... upper case Roman letters (except A, E, I, J, O, T, X, and Z), 18 Chinese characters, and 18 pseudoletters were used ( Figure 1A). The Chinese characters were all valid words with meanings and pronunciations. ...
Context 2
... searched for targets in an RSVP sequence ( Figure 1B). There were four conditions: Roman search among Roman and Chinese distractors (R/RC), Roman search among Roman and Pseudoletter distractors (R/RP), Pseudoletter search among Pseudoletter and Roman dis- tractors (P/PR), and Pseudoletter search among Pseudo- letter and Chinese distractors (P/PC). ...
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Citations
... Thus, words may also be processed holistically. The word composite effect supports this assertion, since it describes the tendency for the whole word to be attended, albeit only part of it is required for a task (i.e., in alphabetic and logographic scripts alike; Chen et al., 2013;Ventura et al., 2017;Wong et al., 2011Wong et al., , 2012. Prior studies have shown that words show a composite effect: When readers perform a same-different matching task on a target part of a word, performance is affected by the irrelevant part. ...
In recent years, increased attention has been devoted to visual word recognition under a perceptual expertise framework. Because the information required to identify words is distributed across the word, a holistic attentional strategy is optimal and develops with experience. It is, however, an open question the extent to which other information embedded in a word may contribute to word holistic processing, namely sublexical word properties. In the present research, we therefore explore the role of sublexical properties—specifically bigram transition probabilities—in this processing strategy. We used a common task in the holistic processing literature (i.e., composite task) and four-letter disyllabic words, where two of the bigrams reinforce the cohesiveness of each syllable and one of the bigrams reinforces the cohesiveness between the syllables. We found preliminary evidence of a role of these sublexical properties in word holistic processing.
... Though many authors argue for holistic processing as exclusive to faces and objects of visual expertise, there are several demonstrations of holistic processing in visual word recognition. The composite task has been recently adopted to examine holistic processing of visual words in alphabetic and logographic scripts (Chen et al., 2013;Ventura et al., 2017;Wong et al., 2011Wong et al., , 2012. Participants are asked to perform a perceptual same-different judgment on a word part (e.g., first syllable) of two sequential words while ignoring another (e.g., second syllable). ...
In 2019, we published a paper in the Journal of Expertise (Ventura et al., 2019) showing that visual words show holistic processing, deemed a characteristic of faces, when the visual stimuli are within the limits of expertise of the Visual Word Form System (Cohen et al., 2008) and thus when there is fast parallel reading. In this commentary, we discuss this evidence considering the perspective of shared processing across both faces and words vs. the perspective of domain specificity for the processing of each domain. Considering the most recent evidence of mutual interference of holistic processing of words and faces (Ventura et al., 2023), we conclude for the first perspective; i.e., shared processing across both faces and words.
... Despite that, the popularity of this method in bilingualism studies is greater than that of VMW. It can for instance be used to examine sentence context effects across bilinguals' languages (Dijkstra et al., 2014) or interference from languages of differing scripts (Wong et al., 2011). Van Hell & de Groot (2008) even used it in single word translation to reveal effects of semantic constraint, cognate status and concreteness levels on processing in forward and backward translation. ...
... The word-composite effect shows that all parts of a visual word are fully processed even if the task requires decision on a part only. The composite task has been recently adopted to examine holistic processing of visual words in alphabetic and logographic scripts (Chen et al., 2013;Ventura et al., 2017;Wong, Bukach, Hsiao, Greenspon, Ahern, & Duan, 2012a;Wong, Zhiyi, McGugin, & Gauthier, 2011b). This is a perceptual task where reading is not required: participants are asked to perform a same-different matching task on a specific visual part (e.g., the first syllable) of two sequential (dissyllabic) words and not on whole strings (e.g., same-response trials 2 : LANE -LADY; LANE -LANE; different-response trials: LANE -CONE; LANE -COZY). ...
Holistic processing of visual words (i.e., obligatory encoding of/attending to all letters of a word) could be a marker of expert word recognition. In the present study, we thus examined for the first time whether there is a direct relation between the word-composite effect (i.e., all parts of a visual word are fully processed when observers perform a task on a word part) and fast access to the orthographic lexicon by visual word experts (i.e., fluent adult readers). We adopted an individual differences approach and used the word-frequency effect (i.e., faster recognition of high- than low-frequency words) in an independent lexical decision task as a proxy of fast access to lexical orthographic representations. Fluent readers with larger word-composite effect showed smaller word-frequency effect. This correlation was mainly driven by an association between a larger composite effect and faster lexical decision on low-frequency words, probably because these lexical representations are less stable and integrated/unitized, hence allowing differentiating among fluent readers. We thus showed that holistic processing of visual words is indeed related to higher efficiency in visual word recognition by skilled readers.
... physical features, conceptual meaning) that become interlinked with the acquisition of new languages (e.g. Frost 2007, 2011;Wong et al. 2011). Within the bilingual mind, the research largely supports models that incorporate a mixed linguistic representation: some aspects of language share a common store while others are separate with language specificity. ...
... physical features, conceptual meaning) that become interlinked with the acquisition of new languages (e.g. Frost 2007, 2011;Wong et al. 2011). Within the bilingual mind, the research largely supports models that incorporate a mixed linguistic representation: some aspects of language share a common store while others are separate with language specificity. ...
This chapter explores various aspects and assumptions of models of bilingual language processing and organization. A brief overview of theoretical language models is provided to include a discussion of the distinction between compound and coordinate bilingualism, as well as models of connectionism, hierarchical structures, and a recently proposed model of language acquisition. The underlying assumptions of these theories and models are assessed with a focus on inter‐language processing and organization. There are many experimental designs that allow for the analysis of behavioural data. Various experimental results obtained using tasks that provide insight into the processing of language through behavioural responses are discussed in relation to learning and memory. The chapter explores findings related to how languages are processed in terms of their lexical units and the underlying nature of these representations. Although the structure of language can impact its processing across languages, the inherent properties of the representations play a key role, as well.
... essing. There are reasons to expect this to be the case. First, common behavioral markers and neural selectivity patterns have been found for expert processing of characters in alphabetic and nonalphabetic writing systems (Gauthier, Wong, Hayward, & Cheung, 2006;A. C.-N. Wong & Gauthier, 2007;A. C.-N. Wong, Gauthier, Woroch, Debuse, & Curran, 2005;A. C.-N. Wong, Qu, McGugin, & Gauthier, 2011). In addition, previous studies have shown the importance of structural information, or the spatial arrangement of the components, in the perception of a character (Yeh & Li, 2002;Yeh, Li, Takeuchi, Sun, & Liu, 2003; but see Ge, Wang, McCleery, & Lee, 2006). ...
Enhanced holistic processing (obligatory attention to all parts of an object) has been associated with different types of perceptual expertise involving faces, cars, fingerprints, musical notes, English words, etc. Curiously Chinese characters are regarded as an exception, as indicated by the lack of holistic processing found for experts (Hsiao and Cottrell, 2009). The ceiling performance of experts, however, may have caused this null effect. We revisit this issue by adopting the often-used face-composite sequential-matching task to two-part Chinese characters. Participants matched the target halves (left or right) of two characters while ignoring the irrelevant halves. Both Chinese readers (experts) and non-Chinese readers (novices) showed holistic processing. Follow-up experiments suggested different origins of the effects for the two groups. For experts, holistic processing was sensitive to the amount of experience with the characters, as it was larger for words than non-words (formed by swapping the two parts of a valid character). Novices, however, showed similar degree of holistic processing to words and non-words, suggesting that their effects were more related to their inefficient decomposition of a complex, character-like pattern into parts. Overall these findings suggest that holistic processing may be a marker of expertise with Chinese characters, contrary to previous claims.
Visual neural processing is distributed among a multitude of sensory and sensory-motor brain areas exhibiting varying degrees of functional specializations and spatial representational anisotropies. Such diversity raises the question of how perceptual performance is determined, at any one moment in time, during natural active visual behavior. Here, exploiting a known dichotomy between the primary visual cortex and superior colliculus in representing either the upper or lower visual fields, we asked whether peri-saccadic orientation identification performance is dominated by one or the other spatial anisotropy. Humans (48 participants, 29 females) reported the orientation of peri-saccadic upper visual field stimuli significantly better than lower visual field stimuli, unlike their performance during steady-state gaze fixation, and contrary to expected perceptual superiority in the lower visual field in the absence of saccades. Consistent with this, peri-saccadic superior colliculus visual neural responses in two male rhesus macaque monkeys were also significantly stronger in the upper visual field than in the lower visual field. Thus, peri-saccadic orientation identification performance is more in line with oculomotor, rather than visual, map spatial anisotropies.
Significance Statement
Different brain areas respond to visual stimulation, but they differ in the degrees of functional specializations and spatial anisotropies that they exhibit. For example, the superior colliculus both responds to visual stimulation, like the primary visual cortex, and controls oculomotor behavior. Compared to the primary visual cortex, the superior colliculus exhibits an opposite pattern of upper/lower visual field anisotropy, being more sensitive to the upper visual field. Here, we show that human peri-saccadic orientation identification performance is better in the upper compared to the lower visual field. Consistent with this, monkey superior colliculus visual neural responses to peri-saccadic stimuli follow a similar pattern. Our results indicate that peri-saccadic perceptual performance reflects oculomotor, rather than visual, map spatial anisotropies.
The question of whether word and face recognition rely on overlapping or dissociable neural and cognitive mechanisms received considerable attention in the literature. In the present work, we presented words (aligned or misaligned) superimposed on faces (aligned or misaligned) and tested the interference from the unattended stimulus category on holistic processing of the attended category. In Experiment 1, we found that holistic face processing is reduced when a face was overlaid with an unattended, aligned word (processed holistically). In Experiment 2, we found a similar reduction of holistic processing for words when a word was superimposed on an unattended, aligned face (processed holistically). This reciprocal interference effect indicates a trade-off in holistic processing of the two stimuli, consistent with the idea that word and face recognition may rely on non-independent, overlapping mechanisms.
Significance
Humans shift their gaze more frequently than their heart beats. These rapid eye movements (saccades) enable high visual acuity by redirecting the tiny high-resolution region of the retina (the foveola). But in doing so, they abruptly sweep the image across receptors, raising questions on how the visual system achieves stable percepts. It is well established that visual sensitivity is transiently attenuated during saccades. However, little is known about the time course of foveal vision despite its disproportionate importance, as technical challenges have so far prevented study of how saccades affect the foveola. Here we show that saccades modulate this region in a nonuniform manner, providing stronger and faster changes at its very center, a locus with higher sensitivity.
