PERCEPTION IS A 2-WAY STREET - FEEDFORWARD AND FEEDBACK PHONOLOGY IN VISUAL WORD RECOGNITION

The influence of phonology on visual word perception tasks is often in dexed by the presence or absence of consistency effects. Consistency c oncerns whether there exists more than one way to pronounce a spelling body (e.g., _INT as in HINT and PINT versus _EAP as in HEAP and LEAP) . The present study considers a similar factor. Feedback consistency c oncerns whether there is more than one way to spell a pronunciation bo dy (e.g., /_ip/ as in HEAP and DEEP versus /_Ob/ as in PROBE and GLOBE ). Two experiments demonstrate a robust feedback consistency effect in visual lexical decision. Words with phonologic bodies that can be spe lled more than one way (e.g., _EAP as in HEAP) produce slower correct ''yes'' responses than words with phonologic bodies that can be spelle d only one way (e.g., _OBE as in PROBE). This result constitutes stron g support for feedback, top-down models of performance in word percept ion tasks. Furthermore, the data suggest that previous tests of consis tency effects may be misleading because they did not take into account feedback consistency. (C) 1997 Academic Press.