Locus of Case Mixing in Visual Word Recognition: What Do Priming Effects Tell Us?

Holly Briggs, Andrea Thody, & Dr. Mei-Ching Lien

School of Psychological Science
Introduction
Visual word recognition studies with a case-mixing manipulation have
consistently revealed shorter response times (RTs) for consistent lowercase than for mixed-case words, known as the case-mixing effect. Lien,
Allen, and Crawford (2012) provided electrophysiological evidence for an
early locus of case mixing (i.e., structural encoding), as indexed by the
N170 effect.
Recently, Perea, Vergara-Martnez, and Gomez (2015) claimed a late
locus of case mixing using a masking priming paradigm. In their study,
participants performed a lexical-decision task on an uppercase target,
which was preceded by an identity or unrelated prime (e.g., plane or
music followed by PLANE, respectively). The prime was presented in
lowercase or mixed case. They found similar priming effects on RT
(unrelated RT identity RT) for lowercase and mixed-case primes,
suggesting that case mixing does not impede the early lexical access.

The Present Study

Perea et al. (2015) used only uppercase targets, which potentially
promoted the visual word recognition system to encode targets and primes
using the letter-level channel (an analytic channel). As a result, a similar
priming effect was observed for both lowercase and mixed case primes.
The present study examined this possibility.
We adopted Perea et al.s (2015) masking priming design but included
both uppercase targets and lowercase targets (blocked within participants).
As in Perea et al., the prime word was presented in lowercase or mixed
case, which was the same identity (regardless of case type) or unrelated to
the target.
We measured the priming effect on RT and proportion of error (PE) for
uppercase targets and lowercase targets.

Experiment 1

Experiment 2

Task: A lexical-decision task - determining whether a letter string formed a

word or nonword (the x key for words and the n key for nonwords).

Experiment 2 examined whether the priming effect observed in Experiment 1

was caused by lexical access.

Stimuli: A total of 160 words and 160 nonwords were used to form 8
different lists, with the list being counterbalanced between participants. A
practice block of 16 trials and 4 regular blocks of 40 trials for each target
case type.

We used a non-lexical, font discrimination task. The stimuli were similar to

Experiment 1, except that the target was printed in Arial for Courier font (the
x key for Arial font and the n key for Courier font). Again, 8 different lists
were generated between participants.

Design: A 2 (prime type; identity vs. unrelated) x 2 (prime case type;

lowercase vs. mixed) x 2 (target case type; lowercase vs. mixed) x 2 (target
lexicality; word vs. nonword) within-subject design. All variables except target
case type were intermixed within blocks.

LaBel

References
Allen, P. A., Wallace, B., & Weber, T. A. (1995). Influence of case type, word frequency, and exposure
duration on visual word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and
Performance, 21, 914-934.
Healy, A.F., & Cunningham, T.F. (1992). A developmental evaluation of word shape in word recognition.
Memory & Cognition, 20, 141-150.
Lien, M.-C., Allen, P. A., & Crawford, C. (2012). Electrophysiological evidence of different loci for case-mixing
and word frequency effects in visual word recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 19, 677-684.
Perea, M., Vergara-Martnez, M., & Gomez, P. (2015). Resolving the locus of cAsE aLtErNaTiOn effects in
visual word cognition: Evidence from masked priming. Cognition, 142, 39-43.

Lowercase Target

Uppercase Target

p=.2284

p=.3267

6 ms

guard

1 ms

-1 ms

4 ms

######

######

GUARD

label

Mask
(500 ms)

Mask
(16 ms)

Prime
(33 ms)

Target
(Until
Respond or
2,500 ms)

Tone Feedback TIME

(100 ms)

Results (N=120)

Target Nonwords
Lowercase Target

Uppercase Target

p=.1748

p=.5023

5 ms

Target Words

Lowercase Target

Uppercase Target

p<.0001

p=.0539

51 ms

25 ms

-1 ms

-1 ms

2 ms

29 ms

39 ms

For both target words and nonwords, the 3-way interaction between target
case type, prime case type, and prime type was not significant on RT and
PE, Fs(1,104)1.81, ps.1814. The priming effect was negligible, indicating
that priming effects were caused primarily by lexical access.

Predictions

If case mixing has an early locus (e.g., an early encoding level), then one
would expect larger priming effects for lowercase than mixed-case primes
at least for the lowercase target where word recognition is achieved
primarily using whole word shape as the basic encoding unit (holistic
processing; e.g., Healy & Cunningham, 1992).

Target Words

Event Sequence: An example of the unrelated prime condition below.

Priming Effect = Unrelated Prime Identity Prime

If case mixing does not hinder the initial access to abstract lexical
representations during visual word recognition as claimed by Perea et al.
(2015), then similar priming effects for lowercase and mixed-case primes
should be observed for both uppercase targets and lowercase targets.

Results (N=112)

Target Nonwords
Lowercase Target

Uppercase Target

p=.0641

p=.6222

20 ms

12 ms

20 ms

12 ms

2 ms

Conclusions

5 ms

For target words, a 3-way interaction between target case type, prime case
type, and prime type was significant on RT, F(1,112)=6.11, p=.0149. Similar
priming effects on RT for lowercase and mixed-case primes were observed
for uppercase target, replicating Perea et al.s (2015) findings. For lowercase
target, however, the priming effect was significantly larger for lowercase
primes than mixed-case primes. For target nonwords, the 3-way interaction
was not significant on RT, F(1,112)=2.39, p=.1250. No effects were observed
in PE, Fs(1,112)1.61, ps.2073. These findings suggest an early locus of
case mixing when holistic processing can be used, as in lowercase targets.

The present study examined whether Perea et al.s (2015) findings were
due to the use of uppercase targets, which potentially promoted the visual
word recognition system to encode targets and primes using the letter-level
channel (an analytic channel).
Experiment 1 used both uppercase and lowercase targets. While the
uppercase target replicated Perea et al. (2015), the priming effects for the
lowercase target were larger for lowercase than mixed-case primes.
Experiment 2 examined whether the priming effect was caused by lexical
access, or not, by using a non-lexical, font discrimination task. The priming
effect was negligible for lowercase and mixed-case primes in both target
words and target nonwords.
These results suggest an earlier lexical locus of the case-mixing effect, as
well as holistic priming.