An input lexicon for familiar numbers

Neuropsychological case-studies suggested that dates and encyclopedic numbers may be processed differently than unknown numbers. However, this issue was seldom investigated in healthy participants. Therefore, it is unclear whether known are read like words (as lexical items), or (each position strictly defines digits’ values a base-10 system). Here, we compared to an experiment using paradigm from the word recognition literature. We assessed word-superiority effect by testing experts (students/ teachers History) with dates. A 4-characters stimulus (xxxx; letters numbers, half known/unknown) presented centrally, masked, followed 2 characters above below mask, at (xXxx) 3 (xxXx) alternative-forced-choice task. Both accuracy reaction times were better for similarly results obtained comparison non-words. modulated string. These show “date-superiority effect” revealing suggest similar orthographical mechanisms might used process words.