Gil-López, C. 1 , Perea, M. 2 , Moret-Tatay, C. 2, 3 & Carreiras, M. 1
1 BCBL, San Sebastián, Spain
2 Universitat de València, Valencia, Spain
3 Universidad Católica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
The goal of the present study is to shed some light on how the word-processing system initially process handwritten words. Despite its ecological validity, research on the intricacies of handwriting word-recognition is quite scarce. Here we conducted a lexical decision experiment to examine which factors modulate the magnitude of masked repetition priming with handwritten words. A printed, target word could be preceded by a handwritten prime or a printed prime. The stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA) was either 33 or 50 ms. Word length was also manipulated, the reason being that the segmentation process in handwritten words might be affected by the number of joined letters. Results showed a robust masked repetition priming effect for both printed primes and for handwritten primes –similar in size for short and long words, and for printed primes and handwritten primes. Not surprisingly, these effects were greater at the 50 than at the 33 ms SOA. Thus, handwritten primes (at least when they are easily legible, as in the present experiment) behave just like printed primes.