The Identification of Meaning

Previous chapters showed how a system of feature analysis could be employed both for the identification of letters and for the direct identification of words. Word identification doesn't require the prior identification of letters, at least not when the word that readers are concerned with is familiar to them, a part of their "sight vocabulary." It is only when words can't be identified immediately that the prior identification of letters may become relevant at all, and then only to a limited extent depending on the amount of contextual and other information that the reader might have available. The alternatives are summed up in Fig. 10. 1.