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Base rates of substituting a word by itself, a nearly identical string, or another valid word

Posted by Potsdam_EM_Group on 28 Sep 2007 at 22:11 GMT

Many letters could only be substituted by themselves and all other letters were in some cases substituted by themselves. As a consequence, many words may not have changed at all or only slightly rendering identification easier than in cases with multiple substitutions. Therefore, can the authors tell the percentage of words that were replaced by themselves or very similar strings? Moreover, some substitutions will have resulted in the creation of new valid words (e.g., arc <-> are, bill <-> hill, if <-> it; end <-> and). These cases may have encouraged readers to give incorrect responses. How often did such cases occur?

RE: Base rates of substituting a word by itself, a nearly identical string, or another valid word

DenisPelli replied to Potsdam_EM_Group on 26 Oct 2007 at 17:03 GMT

In a 583-word sample of text used in the experiments with the L knockout applied, 28% of the words did not change, and 3% were cases where substitution resulted in valid (but incorrect) words.

Denis Pelli & Katharine Tillman
http://psych.nyu.edu/pell...