No Influence of Articulatory Suppression on the Word and Pseudoword Superiority Effects

Abstract

In this study, we explored the role of phonological recoding in word and pseudoword superiority effects, previously characterized as pure orthographic effects. Participants were asked to identify letters embedded in briefly presented words, pseudowords, and nonwords, with and without concurrent articulatory suppression. This manipulation had the purpose of occupying the participants’ phonological loop and interfering with the phonological recoding of stimuli in working memory. We predicted that the presence of articulatory suppression would lower accuracy across stimuli, and that this decrease would be more dramatic for pseudowords if participants relied on phonological recoding to perform the task. Word and pseudoword effects were present in both conditions; furthermore, articulatory suppression caused a similar decrease in accuracy for the three types of stimuli. Therefore, word and pseudoword superiority effects were not affected by the lack of phonological recoding. These results suggest that these effects mainly reflect orthographic processing.