Temporal inhibition in character identification

Models of information processing tasks such as character identification oft en do not consider the nature of the initial sensory representation from wh ich task-relevant information is extracted. An important component of this representation is temporal inhibition, in which the response to a stimulus may inhibit, or in some cases facilitate, processing of subsequent stimuli. Three experiments demonstrate the existence of temporal inhibitory process es in information processing tasks such as character identification and dig it recall. An existing information processing model is extended to account for these effects, based in part on models from the detection literature. T hese experiments also discriminate between candidate neural mechanisms of t he temporal inhibition. Implications for the transient deficit theory of dy slexia are discussed.