Evidence and Evaluate the Methods

¶ … Evidence and Evaluate the Methods That Have Been Word recognition plays an integral role in the general education, and edification, of people. As such, it is increasingly important to determine just what ways word recognition is achieved, so that the process can be refined and increase learning. An examination of both current and historical literature on this subject indicates that there is a confluence of factors that assist in word recognition. The most eminent of these factors include sentence structure, semantic processing,-word length, spelling, and saccadic eye movements.

Interestingly enough, all of these factors are interrelated and ultimately work together for individuals to recognize words. A number of different methodologies have been employed throughout the years to confirm these factors, the most prudent of which are discussed below. When attempting to clarify the method by which people recognize words, it is extremely useful to elucidate the cognitive processes involved.

There have been a number of studies that reliably indicate that the left hemisphere of the brain, which "primarily governs language and verbal abilities" (Mandernach) plays a more significant role in word recognition than the right hemisphere. Although people are capable of using both to recognize words, there is a degree of celerity and relative ease used in the left hemisphere, for which the vast majority of the word recognition takes place.

If there were one singularly important factor in word recognition that is more valuable than the others, it would have to be letter recognition (in particular serial letter recognition), which is directly related to the spelling of words. The preeminence of this factor is fairly valuable, as people are taught to pronounce and initially recognize words by analyzing individual letters and regarding them as a composite for a word.

Not surprisingly, "The bulk of scientific evidence says that we recognize a word's component letters, then use that visual information to recognize a word" (Larsen). By beginning the process of understanding word recognition as a process initiated with the individual letters associated with a particular word's spelling, researchers were able to elucidate the importance of optical involvement in this process. Essentially, readers' eyes make a series of jumpy movements while examining letters within words before achieving recognition and going on to others.

The movements, which are known as saccades, last milliseconds and allow for readers to assess individual letters and form a collective from them. The point that readers specifically look at is where word recognition occurs, but other factors, such as word length, impact this process as well. Word length relates to one of three important zones that are part of saccadic eye movements, assists in this process by helping readers to determine where they will make their next point of fixation in their subsequent "jump" (Larsen).

Word length also plays a more direct role in the process of word recognition, as readers can more readily identify shorter words than longer words. This is largely related to the fact that larger words have more letters to analyze, and therefore require more time (in milliseconds) to decode. This information is largely gained through a methodology known as serial letter recognition, in which words are examined individually from a left to right situation, much the way people look up words in the dictionary.

However, evidence suggests that this model is not as effective as the parallel letter recognition theory, which posits that words are internalized simultaneously (Larsen). Another fairly important facet of word recognition has to do with context. The theory that considers context is known as word shape, which contends that people are able to recognize words based on the shape and the usage of those words, as well as on the structure of sentences.

There are aspects of word shape that operate in conjunction with serial letter recognition, such as the fact that people are able to utilize semantics to recognize words. This semantic aspect of word recognition adheres to principles of sentence structure as well.

There are familiar beginnings and endings of certain phrases; it is possible to look at part of a sentence and anticipate what word, or what sort of word, is going to come next without actually seeing it, due to facets of idiomatic expression and points of commonalities in the way that sentences are phrased. This information, which readers utilize in conjunction with meaning and anticipated meanings of words that should be forthcoming, can assist in word recognition.

The effect of sentence structure in word recognition is thoroughly explored in the use of phrase information to decipher handwriting (Grandidier et al.). The confluence of the aforementioned factors,.