Cognition and Perception Commons^™

Mixed-Case Format And Lexical Decision Performance: Initial Uppercase Is Special, Julia Harvey Azzolina, Lois Rotuno, April Butler Waltonen, Albert Smith

April D Waltonen

Previous research has shown that there are phenomena that may require a route to word identification by means other than through letters. For example, in a lexical decision task, in which an experimental participant is asked to determine if a string of letters is a word or not, responses to items in a MIXed caSE format are slower than to items in PURE UPPERCASE or pure lowercase formats. In this experiment, we investigated the effect of different mixed-case formats on lexical decision performance, focusing on the type and location of the case transition. Twenty-four students participated in a lexical decision …