SEMANTIC INTERFERENCE FROM UNATTENDED PRINTED WORDS

Abstract

Is attention necessary for reading? Whilst subjects named simple line‐drawings which were exposed briefly in these experiments, irrelevant words were also displayed for short intervals. The naming latencies to the drawings varied as a function of attentional selectivity and as a function of the semantic association between picture and word. With focused attention only related words caused interference, but with a divided attention strategy unrelated words also retarded the naming latencies to the drawings. Words may be recognized whilst attention is diverted away from them, but if attention is highly selective then only semantically related items will affect performance. If the extraction of individual meanings of words is a preattentive process, then the selective admittance of information to awareness, in reading and elsewhere, may be for purposes of schematic assimilation.

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