Document Type
Article
Source of Publication
Language and Cognition
Publication Date
1-1-2024
Abstract
Research using masked priming and parafoveal preview techniques has shown that visual letter similarity has an impact on word processing during the initial stages in Latin-derived scripts. However, these effects appear to be absent in Arabic. One reason for this discrepancy could be attributed to the distinctive features of the Arabic script, which includes numerous letters sharing a basic form while varying in the location or number of diacritics. To shed light on this issue, the present study employed Arabic letters rather than words in two masked priming experiments: an alphabetic decision task and a letter-matching task. Both experiments showed that visually similar letters were more effective as primes than visually dissimilar letters. These findings suggest that the processes of letter identification in Arabic and Latin scripts may be roughly alike, implying that differences in visual letter similarity across scripts may arise at later stages of processing.
DOI Link
ISSN
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Disciplines
Linguistics
Keywords
Arabic reading, letter encoding, masked priming, visual similarity
Scopus ID
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
AlJassmi, Maryam A. and Perea, Manuel, "Visual similarity effects in the identification of Arabic letters: evidence with masked priming" (2024). All Works. 6571.
https://zuscholars.zu.ac.ae/works/6571
Indexed in Scopus
yes
Open Access
yes
Open Access Type
Gold: This publication is openly available in an open access journal/series