BACS: The Brussels Artificial Characters Sets for studies in cognitive psychology and neuroscience

PUBLISHED STUDY. Written symbols such as letters have been extensively used in cognitive psychology, be it to understand their contribution to written word recognition or to examine processes involved in other mental functions. Sometimes, however, researchers want to manipulate letters while removing their associated characteristics. A powerful solution to do so is to use new characters, devised to be highly similar to letters, but without associated sound or name. Given the growing use of artificial characters in experimental paradigms, the aim of the present study was to make available the Brussels Artificial Character Sets (BACS), two full, strictly controlled, and portable sets of artificial characters for a broad range of experimental situations.

本项已公开发表的研究表明，在认知心理学领域，诸如字母等书写符号已被广泛运用，无论是为了探究其对书面词汇识别的贡献，还是为了检验其他心理功能中的相关过程。然而，有时研究者希望在去除与字母相关特征的同时对字母进行操作。一种有效的解决方案是采用新型字符，这些字符被设计得与字母高度相似，却不含相应的声音或名称。鉴于人工字符在实验范式中的日益广泛应用，本研究旨在提供布鲁塞尔人工字符集（BACS），该字符集包含两个完整、严格控制且易于携带的人工字符集合，适用于各种实验情境。