In cognitive psychology, the missing letter effect refers to the finding that, when people are asked to consciously detect target letters while reading text, they miss more letters in frequent function words (e.g. the letter "h" in "the") than in less frequent, content words.[1][2] Understanding how, why and where this effect arises becomes useful in explaining the range of cognitive processes that are associated with reading text.[2] The missing letter effect has also been referred to as the reverse word superiority effect, since it describes a phenomenon where letters in more frequent words fail to be identified, instead of letter identification benefitting from increased word frequency.
The method in which researchers utilise to measure this effect is termed a letter detection task. This involves a paper-and-pencil procedure, where readers are asked to circle a target letter, such as "t" every time they come across it while reading a prose passage or text.[3][4] Researchers measure the number of letter detection errors, or missed circled target letters, in the texts. The missing letter effect is more likely to appear when reading words that are part of a normal sequence, than when words are embedded in a mixed-up sequence (e.g. readers asked to read backwards).[5]
Despite the missing letter effect being a common phenomenon, there are different factors that have influence on the magnitude of this effect. Age (development), language proficiency and the position of target letters in words are some of these factors.[3]
^Healy, A. F. (1976-05-01). "Detection errors on the word the: evidence for reading units larger than letters". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 2 (2): 235–42. doi:10.1037/0096-1523.2.2.235. PMID 1271029. S2CID 18096103.
^ abHealy, Alice F. (1994-09-01). "Letter detection: A window to unitization and other cognitive processes in reading text". Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 1 (3): 333–344. doi:10.3758/BF03213975. ISSN 1531-5320. PMID 24203518.
^ abCite error: The named reference :6 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Drewnowski, A.; A. F. Healy (1977). "Detection errors on the and and: Evidence for reading units larger than the word". Memory & Cognition. 5 (1): 636–647. doi:10.3758/BF03197410. PMID 24203280.
and 22 Related for: Missing letter effect information
In cognitive psychology, the missinglettereffect refers to the finding that, when people are asked to consciously detect target letters while reading...
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, and others worldwide. Its name in...
The Zinoviev letter was a forged document published and sensationalised by the British Daily Mail newspaper four days before the 1924 United Kingdom general...
between high and low frequency words. Word lists by frequency tf–idf Missinglettereffect Zipf's law Daniel Smilek; Scott Sinnett; Alan Kingstone. "Cognition"...
weight if they neglected to focus on the full word. Tachistoscope Missinglettereffect Falikman, M. V. (2011). "Word superiority effects across the varieties...
location missing publisher (link) Briggs, Lyman (1959). "Effect of Spin and Speed on the Lateral Deflection (Curve) of a Baseball and the Magnus Effect for...
A letter of credit (LC), also known as a documentary credit or bankers commercial credit, or letter of undertaking (LoU), is a payment mechanism used...
cheap card-rack with a dirty, half-torn letter in one of its slots. Dupin determined that this was the missingletter, which D— had folded inside-out, re-addressed...
Red letter edition bibles are those in which the words considered as being spoken by Jesus Christ are printed in red ink. The inspiration for printing...
industry members signed an open letter to President Joe Biden as part of the collective demanding a ceasefire. The letter has expanded to include hundreds...
(antonym) (Einstellung effect as a) wrong working hypothesis Functional fixedness and the candle problem Law of the instrument Missing square puzzle (a typical...
the first to be featured on milk cartons as part of a campaign to find missing children. As of 2024[update], there have been no arrests made and the case...
difference is often irrelevant by objective standards. See also von Restorff effect. Selection bias, which happens when the members of a statistical sample...
application of the look-elsewhere effect. The 13th-century Spanish rabbi Bachya ben Asher described an ELS in the Bible. His four-letter example related to the traditional...
Winston Churchill wrote in his diary "Leningrad is encircled" then sent a letter to Mannerheim requesting that the Finnish army should stop harassing the...
combinations of letters rather than just a single letter. Two-letter combinations are called digraphs, and three-letter groups are called trigraphs. German uses...
silent letter is a letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any sound in the word's pronunciation. In linguistics, a silent letter is often...
Dogra's house is missing. Bhavani Singh also gets to know that Aakash returned to the first anniversary party on the day Ajay Kumar went missing. Bhavani Singh...
in different languages have differing letter distributions of the tiles, because the frequency of each letter of the alphabet is different for every...
and hygiene inspection reports are used to compute numerical scores or letter grades, and those must be prominently posted by restaurants. The first state...
Global Information
