EFFECT OF SYNTACTIC ROLE AND SYNTACTIC PROMINENCE ON LETTER DETECTION

Participants read passages and circled instances of a target letter. T hey made more correct detections on the when it was an adverb than whe n it was a definite article, when it occurred in a subject than in an object phrase, and when it was preposed than when it occurred normally . These results suggest that syntactic role affects letter detection e ven when meaning is controlled, and that giving greater syntactic prom inence (i.e., salience or emphasis) affects letter detection even when both meaning and syntactic role are controlled. These findings pose a challenge to both the structural account of letter detection and the processing time account.