Record-based Word Recognition
Max Coltheart · 2016
Two approaches are evident in recent research into word recognition. The first of these involves analytic processes (e.g. Forster, 1976; Morton, 1969; Taft & Forster, 1975). The critical feature in this approach is that the internal referents for each word are abstractions. The referents are formed by, and derived from, experience. But the details of that experience are not preserved directly in the recognition system. In the second, or nonanalytic approach, the idea that there is a single abstract referent for each word is discarded, and it is assumed instead that recognition depends on reference to specific instances or records (Brooks, in press; Jacoby & Brooks, 1984; Kirsner & Dunn, 1985). In this case, then, each event or act of identification yields a record, and the ensemble of records functions as a recognition resource when new perceptual problems are encountered.