ABSTRACT
Almost 100 years ago, Cattell (1886) discovered that letters are perceived more accurately when they appear in words than when they appear in other contexts. This word-superiority effect (WSE) has been actively investigated, with only a few lapses in interest, ever since. The WSE has thus been studied for about as long as psychology has been a distinct discipline. It is reasonable to ask why, at this late date, so many researchers, including myself, still find this phenomenon so intriguing. The answer is that the WSE has continued to defy explanation by any theory of how word perception works. The more we know about the WSE, the less adequate any simple explanation seems to be. Study of the WSE thus continues to lead us to more complex and, we hope, more revealing theories of how people perceive printed words.
