Tachistoscopic recognition of syllabicated words

In Experiment I, two-syllable words were presented in a multi-channel tachisto-scope. The whole word (W), first syllable (S 1 ), and second syllable (S 2 ) were displayed independently according to various schedules of successive 50-ms exposures; the exposures were in immediate succession, with no break apparent to the subject. Accuracy of identifying the words was facilitated by presenting a syllable before or after the whole word (S 1 W, S 2 W or WS 1 , WS 2 ) in comparison with presenting the whole word alone (W). Presentation of the whole word for 100 ms (WW) produced better performance than sequential presentation of the first syllable, the whole word, and the second syllable for 50 ms each (S 1 WS 2 ); the whole-word presentation (WW) was also superior to the reverse sequence (S 2 WS 1 ). In Experiment II, strings of random digits were presented in the formats of S 1 WS 2 , WW, and S 2 WS 1 . Unlike the results of Experiment I, performance in the sequential conditions was not different from that in the simultaneous condition. It was concluded that sequential tachistoscopic presentation does not affect identification of unrelated characters, although it does disrupt the process of word recognition. Three hypotheses to explain the disruption were discussed: distortion of phonological representation, interruption of medial letter clusters, and fragmentation of the whole word.