Winskel, Heather, and Perea, Manuel (2022) Mirror-image discrimination in monoliterate English and Thai readers: reading with and without mirror letters. Journal Of Cultural Cognitive Science, 6. pp. 169-177.

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Abstract

We investigated how becoming literate in Roman script affects the way we process letter-like objects and even faces, using a paired same-different task with nonwords, false fonts (letter-like symbols), and faces with monoliterate English and Thai readers. Roman script has mirror letter pairs whereas Thai script does not. Importantly, the Thais were literate in Thai but illiterate in Roman script. Participants were required to respond with a “same” response to both identical and mirror pairs of images. We predicted that the Thais would be more influenced by mirror invariance and so better able to recognise mirror-image pairs as being the same object than English readers. We found support for this prediction as the English readers showed a greater mirror cost for response times than the Thais. Thus, becoming literate in Roman script reduces the ability to judge two mirror images as the “same” in comparison to Thai script readers. These findings provide evidence that Thai readers who are illiterate in Roman script are more susceptible to mirror generalisation effects than Roman script readers.

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