How lingering representations of abandoned context words affect speech production.

Four experiments tested whether and how initially planned but then abandoned speech can influence the production of a subsequent resumption. Participants named initial pictures, which were sometimes suddenly replaced by target pictures that were related in meaning or word form or were unrelated. They then had to stop and resume with the name of the target picture.

Crowding affects letters and symbols differently.

Five experiments examined crowding effects with letter and symbol stimuli. Experiments 1 through 3 compared 2-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) identification accuracy for isolated targets presented left and right of fixation with targets flanked either by 2 other items of the same category or a single item situated to the right or left of targets. Interference from flankers (crowding) was significantly stronger for symbols than letters.

Serial position effects in the identification of letters, digits, and symbols.

In 6 experiments, the authors investigated the form of serial position functions for identification of letters, digits, and symbols presented in strings. The results replicated findings obtained with the target search paradigm, showing an interaction between the effects of serial position and type of stimulus, with symbols generating a distinct serial position function compared with letters and digits. When the task was 2-alternative forced choice, this interaction was driven almost exclusively by performance at the first position in the string, with letters and digits showing much higher levels of accuracy than symbols at this position.