Missing letter effect

The Missing letter effect refers to the finding when people are asked to consciously detect target letters while reading, they miss more letters in frequent function words than in less frequent content words.

This effect is usually measured in a paper and pencil procedure. This is more likely to occur in words part of a normal sequence than when it's embedded in a mixed-up sequence.

The effect gave rise to two hypothesis. Healy emphasized identification processes playing a crucial role, almost entirely focusing on word frequency. Koriat and Greenberg viewed the structural role of the embedding word to be crucial. Both accounts for the effect had been thoroughly investigated, but neither could completely explain the effect.

A new model can potentially explain the effect. This model is referred to as the guidance-organization model. It is a combination of the two models. As Greenberg et al. explain it: “the time spent processing high-frequency function words at the whole-word level is relatively short, thereby enabling the fast and early use of these words to build a tentative structural frame”