Proofreading familiar text: Allocating resources to perceptual and conceptual processes

Levy (1983) demonstrated that more spelling errors were detected, within a limited time period, when familiar passages were proofread than when unfamiliar passages were proofread. In the present series, Experiment 1 eliminated a possible confound in the Levy (1983) studies and showed that errors were detected both faster and more accurately in familiar texts. Experiment 2 demonstrated higher order involvement in the proofreading transfer effect, suggesting that a strictly word-level account was insufficient. Experiment 3 explored the proofreader’s sensitivity to the semantic properties of the proofreading passage, showing that the familiarity effect resulted from more efficient processing, not from lack of either visual or semantic analyses. The results are more consistent with a resource-allocation explanation than with either a visual-scanning or a skilled-visual-processing account.