Derek Besner

Distinguished Professor Emeritus

Derek Besner.
BA (Loyola), MSc (Memorial), PhD (Reading)

Contact information

Derek Besner's Lab web page

Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) University Research Fellow (1981-1990)

Recipient, 2017 Excellence in Arts Research Award

Research interests

My primary research interests involve basic processes in reading, acquired reading disorders, semantic processing, orthographies and phonologies, computational modelling, intention and control, mental set, and attention and automaticity.

Selected publications

  • Risko, E. F., Lanthier, S., & Besner, D. (2011). The effect of letter spacing on visual word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (in press).
  • Reynolds, M., & Besner, D. (2011). There goes the neighbourhood: Constraints on theories of visual word recognition. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64, 2405-2420.
  • Blais, C., O'Malley, S., & Besner, D. (2011). On the joint effect of repetition and stimulus quality in lexical decision: Looking to the past for a new way forward. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64, 2368-2382.
  • O'Malley, S., & Besner, D. (2011). Lexical processing while deciding what task to perform: Reading aloud in the context of the task set paradigm. Consciousness and Cognition, 20, 1594-1603.
  • Reynolds, M.G., Besner, D., & Coltheart, M. (2011). Reading aloud: New evidence for contextual control over the breadth of lexical activation. Memory and Cognition, 39, 1332-1347.
  • Besner, D., Moroz, S., & O'Malley, S. (2011). On the strength of connections between localist mental modules as a source of frequency of occurrence/familiarity effects. Psychological Science, 22, 393-398.
  • Borgman, K., Fugelsang, J., Ansari, D., & Besner (2011). Congruency proportion reveals asymmetric processing of irrelevant physical and numerical dimensions in the size congruity paradigm. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65, 98-104.
  • Tree, J., Longmore, C., & Besner, D. (2011). Orthography, phonology, short term memory and the effects of concurrent articulation on rhyme and homophony judgments. Acta Psychologica, 136, 11-19.
  • Waechter, S., Besner, D., & Stolz, J. A. (2011). Spatial attention as a necessary preliminary to lexical and semantic processing in visual word recognition. Visual Cognition, 19, 171-202.
  • Robidoux, S., & Besner, D. (2011). When benefits outweigh costs: Automatic phonological recoding reconsidered. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 65, 105-108.
  • Risko, E.F., Stolz, J.A., & Besner, D. (2011). Basic processes in reading: On the relation between spatial attention and familiarity. Language and Cognitive Processes, 26, 47-62.
  • Risko, E.F., Stolz, J.A., & Besner, D. (2010). Spatial attention modulates feature cross talk in visual word processing. Attention, Perception and Psychophysics, 72, 989-998.
  • Besner, D., O'Malley, S., & Robidoux, S. (2010). On the joint effects of stimulus quality, regularity and lexicality: New challenges. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. 36, 750-764.
  • Schmidt, J., De Houwer, J., & Besner, D. (2010). Contingency learning and unlearning in the blink of an eye: A resource dependent process. Consciousness and Cognition, 19, 235-250.
  • Robidoux, S., Stolz, J.A., & Besner, D. (2010). Visual word recognition: Evidence for global and local control over feedback from semantics. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perception, 36, 689-703.
  • Waechter, S., Besner, D., & Stolz, J. (2010). Visual word recognition: On the reliability of repetition priming. Visual Cognition, 18, 537-558.
  • Besner, D., Reynolds, M., & O'Malley, S. (2009).When under-additivity of factor effects in the Psychological Refractory Period paradigm implies a bottleneck: Evidence from psycholinguistics. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62, 2222-2234.
  • Lanthier, S., Risko, E.F., Stolz, J.A., & Besner, D. (2009). Not all visual features are created equal: Early processes in letter and word recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16, 67-73.
  • Paulitzki, J. R., Risko, E.F., O'Malley, S., Stolz, J.A. & Besner, D. (2009). On the role of set when reading aloud: A dissociation between prelexical and lexical processing. Consciousness and Cognition, 18, 135-144.
  • Maloney, E.A., Risko, E.F., O'Malley, S., & Besner, D. (2009). Tracking the transition from sublexical to lexical processing: On the creation of orthographic and phonological lexical entries in reading aloud. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62, 858-867.
  • Besner, D., & O'Malley, S. (2009). Additivity of factor effects in reading tasks is still a challenge for computational models: Reply to Ziegler, Perry and Zorzi (2009). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 35, 312-316.
  • Rastle, K., Havelka, J., Wydell, T. N., Coltheart, M., & Besner, D. (2009). The cross script length effect: Further evidence challenging PDP models of reading aloud. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 35, 238-246.
  • Ferguson, R., Robidoux, S., & Besner, D. (2009). Reading aloud: Contextual control over lexical activation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 35, 499-507.
  • O'Malley, S., & Besner, D. (2008). Reading aloud: Qualitative differences in the Relation between word frequency and stimulus quality as a function of context. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 34, 1400-1411.
  • Risko, E.F., & Besner, D. (2008). A role for set in the control of automatic spatial response activation. Experimental Psychology, 55, 38-46.
  • Yap, M. J., Balota, D.A., Tse, C.S., & Besner, D. (2008). On the additive effects of stimulus quality and word frequency in lexical decision: Evidence for opposing interactive influences revealed by RT distributional analyses. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34, 495-513.
  • O'Malley, S., Reynolds, M., Stolz, J.A., & Besner, D. (2008). Reading Aloud: Spelling-sound translation uses central attention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34, 422-429.
  • Schmidt, J. & Besner, D. (2008). The Stroop effect: Why proportion congruent has nothing to do with congruency and everything to do with contingency. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34, 422-429.
  • Besner, D., Wartak, S., & Robidoux, S. (2008). Constraints on implemented models of basic processes in reading. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34, 242-250.
  • Reynolds M., & Besner, D. (2008). Contextual effects on reading aloud: Evidence for pathway control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34, 0-64.
  • Risko, E.F., Blais, C., Stolz, J.A., & Besner, D. (2008). Non-strategic contributions to putatively strategic effects in selective attention tasks: Proportion compatible manipulations reconsidered. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 34, 1044-1052.
  • Risko, E.F., Blais, C., Stolz, J.A. and Besner, D. (2008). Covert orienting: A compound cue account of the Proportion Cued Effect. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 15, 123-127.