Effects of aLtErNaTeD case on naming - and lexical decision latencies in German

The question of whether alternated case affects naming and lexical decision performance for all words equally, or especially for low-frequency words, was examined. Opposed to the unclear findings in English, for regular German words, recognition of low-frequency words was more affected by alternated case than recognition of high-frequency words. Within a dual-route account of word recognition, this indicates processes involved on an indirect non-lexical route. To examine the mechanisms contributing to alternated case effects, letter clusters were marked by color. Alternated case effects were smaller in colored words indicating that an impaired processing of the serial order of the letters underlies them. Whether syllables or random letter clusters were colored did not affect performances suggesting that the syllable plays only a minor role in German.