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Seeing Things From Different Angles – Non-Canonical Orientation Effects on Visual Word Recognition Reflect Quantitative and Not Qualitative Consequences

Amy Allen, Jeremy Tree Orcid Logo, David Playfoot Orcid Logo

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Swansea University Authors: Amy Allen, Jeremy Tree Orcid Logo, David Playfoot Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1177/17470218261434511

Abstract

For skilled readers, word recognition is an apparently effortless cognitive process that can be swiftly performed across various presentation formats. A seminal study by Driver and Baylis investigated how two ‘real-world’ non-canonical orientations might disrupt visual word recognition of English wo...

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Published in: Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
ISSN: 1747-0218 1747-0226
Published: SAGE Publications 2026
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa71601
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spelling 2026-04-28T11:08:16.9555808 v2 71601 2026-03-09 Seeing Things From Different Angles – Non-Canonical Orientation Effects on Visual Word Recognition Reflect Quantitative and Not Qualitative Consequences 7e200b874451eaba253bf118a8ca5d8e Amy Allen Amy Allen true false 373fd575114a743d502a979c6161b1ad 0000-0001-6000-8125 Jeremy Tree Jeremy Tree true false 4dbddc73fd0fe464304ba8ad95cbc96e 0000-0003-0855-334X David Playfoot David Playfoot true false 2026-03-09 For skilled readers, word recognition is an apparently effortless cognitive process that can be swiftly performed across various presentation formats. A seminal study by Driver and Baylis investigated how two ‘real-world’ non-canonical orientations might disrupt visual word recognition of English words: namely, 90-degree rotation (e.g. the title on the spine of a book) and a vertical letter arrangement from top to bottom (e.g. the title on a building’s marquee banner). Driver and Baylis found that rotation had a less detrimental impact on speed and accuracy than the marquee presentation, which they interpreted as evidence for the importance of preserving a word’s ‘principal axis’. The current study seeks to replicate the findings of the original experiment and include a canonical (typical) presentation, which was absent in the original work. This ‘baseline’ inclusion allows for a clearer assessment of the effects of non-canonical orientations on typical lexical processing in visual word recognition. Additionally, we systematically examined the potential attenuation of these orientation manipulations on two key variables relating to word items (frequency) and nonword items (pseudohomophony) respectively. Our findings broadly replicate those of Driver and Baylis, indicating a graded impact of non-canonical presentation (canonical > rotated > marquee). Lexical effects remained remarkably robust across all presentation formats, suggesting that access persists even when letter strings are presented in such unfamiliar orientations. We interpret this robustness as indicating that the effects of non-canonical presentation on lexical processing are quantitative rather than qualitative in nature. Journal Article Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 0 SAGE Publications 1747-0218 1747-0226 visual word recognition, letter position coding, non-canonical presentation, lexical decision 10 3 2026 2026-03-10 10.1177/17470218261434511 COLLEGE NANME COLLEGE CODE Swansea University SU Library paid the OA fee (TA Institutional Deal) Swansea University 2026-04-28T11:08:16.9555808 2026-03-09T13:50:30.5021568 Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences School of Psychology Amy Allen 1 Jeremy Tree 0000-0001-6000-8125 2 David Playfoot 0000-0003-0855-334X 3 71601__36602__68fba47193e34a0fadf0efee6cdc0ffc.pdf 71601.VOR.pdf 2026-04-27T11:08:21.2848001 Output 765388 application/pdf Version of Record true © Experimental Psychology Society 2026. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. true eng https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
title Seeing Things From Different Angles – Non-Canonical Orientation Effects on Visual Word Recognition Reflect Quantitative and Not Qualitative Consequences
spellingShingle Seeing Things From Different Angles – Non-Canonical Orientation Effects on Visual Word Recognition Reflect Quantitative and Not Qualitative Consequences
Amy Allen
Jeremy Tree
David Playfoot
title_short Seeing Things From Different Angles – Non-Canonical Orientation Effects on Visual Word Recognition Reflect Quantitative and Not Qualitative Consequences
title_full Seeing Things From Different Angles – Non-Canonical Orientation Effects on Visual Word Recognition Reflect Quantitative and Not Qualitative Consequences
title_fullStr Seeing Things From Different Angles – Non-Canonical Orientation Effects on Visual Word Recognition Reflect Quantitative and Not Qualitative Consequences
title_full_unstemmed Seeing Things From Different Angles – Non-Canonical Orientation Effects on Visual Word Recognition Reflect Quantitative and Not Qualitative Consequences
title_sort Seeing Things From Different Angles – Non-Canonical Orientation Effects on Visual Word Recognition Reflect Quantitative and Not Qualitative Consequences
author_id_str_mv 7e200b874451eaba253bf118a8ca5d8e
373fd575114a743d502a979c6161b1ad
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author_id_fullname_str_mv 7e200b874451eaba253bf118a8ca5d8e_***_Amy Allen
373fd575114a743d502a979c6161b1ad_***_Jeremy Tree
4dbddc73fd0fe464304ba8ad95cbc96e_***_David Playfoot
author Amy Allen
Jeremy Tree
David Playfoot
author2 Amy Allen
Jeremy Tree
David Playfoot
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publishDate 2026
institution Swansea University
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publisher SAGE Publications
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hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
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hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences
department_str School of Psychology{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Psychology
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description For skilled readers, word recognition is an apparently effortless cognitive process that can be swiftly performed across various presentation formats. A seminal study by Driver and Baylis investigated how two ‘real-world’ non-canonical orientations might disrupt visual word recognition of English words: namely, 90-degree rotation (e.g. the title on the spine of a book) and a vertical letter arrangement from top to bottom (e.g. the title on a building’s marquee banner). Driver and Baylis found that rotation had a less detrimental impact on speed and accuracy than the marquee presentation, which they interpreted as evidence for the importance of preserving a word’s ‘principal axis’. The current study seeks to replicate the findings of the original experiment and include a canonical (typical) presentation, which was absent in the original work. This ‘baseline’ inclusion allows for a clearer assessment of the effects of non-canonical orientations on typical lexical processing in visual word recognition. Additionally, we systematically examined the potential attenuation of these orientation manipulations on two key variables relating to word items (frequency) and nonword items (pseudohomophony) respectively. Our findings broadly replicate those of Driver and Baylis, indicating a graded impact of non-canonical presentation (canonical > rotated > marquee). Lexical effects remained remarkably robust across all presentation formats, suggesting that access persists even when letter strings are presented in such unfamiliar orientations. We interpret this robustness as indicating that the effects of non-canonical presentation on lexical processing are quantitative rather than qualitative in nature.
published_date 2026-03-10T06:04:49Z
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