How orthographic transparency affects morphological processing in young readers with and without reading disability

This study investigates how orthographic modifications to the stems of complex words affect morphological processing in proficient young Spanish readers and children with reading deficits. In a definition task all children, irrespective of their reading skill, were worse at defining derived words that had an orthographic alteration of the base stem than words with no orthographic alteration. In a go/no‐go lexical decision task, an interaction between base frequency and orthographic alteration was found: base frequency affected derived words with no orthographic alteration more than words with alterations, irrespective of reading skill. Overall, results show that all children benefit from a high frequency base, skilled children outperform children with reading deficits and morphological processing is affected by orthographic alterations similarly in proficient and impaired readers.     

Transfer effects from language processing to visual attention dynamics: The impact of orthographic transparency

The consistency between letters and sounds varies across languages. These differences have been proposed to be associated with different reading mechanisms (lexical vs. phonological), processing grain sizes (coarse vs. fine) and attentional windows (whole words vs. individual letters). This study aimed to extend this idea to writing to dictation. For that purpose, we evaluated whether the use of different types of processing has a differential impact on local windowing attention: phonological (local) processing in a transparent language (Spanish) and lexical (global) processing of an opaque language (English). Spanish and English monolinguals (Experiment 1) and Spanish–English bilinguals (Experiment 2) performed a writing to dictation task followed by a global–local task. The first key performance showed a critical dissociation between languages: the response times (RTs) from the Spanish writing to dictation task was modulated by word length, whereas the RTs from the English writing to dictation task was modulated by word frequency and age of acquisition, as evidence that language transparency biases processing towards phonological or lexical strategies. In addition, after a Spanish task, participants more efficiently processed local information, which resulted in both the benefit of global congruent information and the reduced cost of incongruent global information. Additionally, the results showed that bilinguals adapt their attentional processing depending on the orthographic transparency.     

Effects of orthographic transparency on reading and phoneme awareness in children learning to read in Wales

The relationship between the development of reading skills and the consistency of the orthography (writing system) is investigated in a study that examines reading acquisition in children living in Wales. Performance of children learning to read Welsh (a transparent alphabetic orthography) on tests of reading and phoneme detection was compared with the performance of children learning to read English (an opaque alphabetic orthography). The children were tested during their second year of formal reading instruction at school when they were aged between 5 and 6 years, and again one year later. The children learning to read in Welsh performed significantly better at reading both real words and nonwords than children learning to read in English. The English readers made fewer phonologically based reading errors. The Welsh readers also performed better on a phoneme awareness task. These findings support the claim that children learn to read more quickly in a transparent orthography, and provide further evidence that the consistency of the orthography influences the initial adoption of different strategies for word recognition.     

Engaging the motor system with masked orthographic primes: A kinematic analysis

We report two experiments in which participants categorized target words (e.g., BLOOD or CUCUMBER) according to their canonical colour of red or green by pointing to a red square on the left or a green square on the right. Unbeknownst to the participants, the target words were preceded by the prime words “red” or “green”. We found that the curvature of participants’ pointing trajectories was greater following incongruent primes (green–BLOOD) than it was following congruent primes, indicating that individuals initiated a response on the basis of the prime and then corrected that response mid-flight. This finding establishes that the processing of masked orthographic stimuli extends down to include the formulation of an overt manual response.     

A quantitative analysis of extreme choice

Six homing pigeons were trained on a variety of concurrent variable-interval schedules in a switching-key procedure. Unlike previous work, reinforcer ratios of up to 160 to 1 and concurrent extinction variable-interval schedules were arranged in order to investigate choice when reinforcer-frequency outcomes were extremely different. The data obtained over 11 conditions were initially analyzed according to the generalized matching law, which fitted the data well. The generalized matching law was then fitted only to conditions in which the reinforcer ratios were between 1 to 10 and 10 to 1. The deviations of choice measures from the other four more extreme reinforcer-ratio conditions were significantly more towards equal choice than predicted by this second generalized matching fit. A contingency-discriminability model, which predicts such deviations, described the data more effectively than did the generalized matching law, and also correctly predicted the maintenance of responding on both alternatives when one was associated with extinction.     

A quantitative analysis of chain-schedule performance

Six pigeons were trained with a chain variable-interval variable-interval schedule on the left key and with reinforcers available on the right key on a single variable-interval schedule arranged concurrently with both links of the chain. All three schedules were separately and systematically varied over a wide range of mean intervals. During these manipulations, the obtained reinforcer rates on constant arranged schedules also frequently changed systematically. Increasing reinforcer rates in Link 2 of the chain increased response rates in both links and decreased response rates in the variable-interval schedule concurrently available with Link 2. Increasing Link-1 reinforcer rates increased Link-1 response rates and decreased Link-2 response rates. Increasing reinforcer rates on the right-key schedule decreased response rates in Link 1 of the chain but did not affect the rate in Link 2. The results extend and amplify previous analyses of chain-schedule performance and help define the effects that a quantitative model must describe. However, the complexity of the results, and the fact that constant arranged reinforcer schedules did not necessarily lead to constant obtained reinforcer rates, precluded a quantitative analysis.     

A word superiority effect without orthographic assistance

In a binary classification task meaningful but unpronounceable letter strings were compared faster than meaningless strings. This effect obtained when only one member of a pair was meaingful and it increased with number of letters. These results suggest that analysis proceeds in parallel at various levels of the processing hierarchy with interaction between semantic and graphemic processes.     

Feedforward, -backward,and neutral transparency measures for Grade 1 and Grade 2 Greek readers

In the present study, orthographic metrics for Greek children’s Grade 1 and Grade 2 reading materials were presented. Data for five transparency metrics—three of which being neither feedforward nor feedbackward— were presented and offered for use in the research of children’s reading and spelling acquisition. The analysis demonstrated the complex relationships between metrics and compared the results with those obtained for the English language. The structure of these metrics from a variety of corpus sizes was investigated, and we concluded that large corpus sizes do not necessarily make a substantial contribution to the value of such metrics when compared with smaller samples.     

A postulate-based analysis of comparative preference statements

There has been a growing interest in the study of preferences for their utility in solving problems related to decision making. Most of the preference representation languages developed in the literature are based on comparative preference statements since they offer a simple and intuitive way for expressing preferences. They can be further interpreted following different semantics, imparting a greater flexibility on how outcomes can be compared. So far the main objective has been to rank-order the set of outcomes given a set of comparative preference statements and one or several semantics. Tackling this problem from a different angle, we look into the behavioural aspects of the preference semantics and statements by attempting to formalise the intuition behind them using postulates studied in preference logics and non-monotonic reasoning. We select the postulates w.r.t. three criteria: coherence, syntax independence and inference. Thus, our analysis provides a means to determine those properties that are satisfied for a given preference semantics.     

A weighted-average model of achromatic transparency

A model of achromatic transparency based on the idea that neural representations of transparency are activated by proximal contours is described. It is proposed that the weighted average of the magnitudes of the representations of transparency relative to a perceived continuous transparent surface corresponds to the judgement of the overall degree of transparency of the same surface. Tests of this weighted-average model were carried out with bistable patterns formed by two overlapping surfaces that appeared opaque where they were superimposed on the background and transparent where they were superimposed on each other (partial transparency). In agreement with predictions from the weighted-average model, the rated degrees of transparency of these two surfaces were noncomplementary and independent of background reflectance. Two experiments confirmed the contention of this model that the relevant proximal contours for the judgement of partial transparency of the two overlapping transparent surfaces in a bistable pattern correspond to the part where these surfaces are superimposed.     

A comparative analysis of serial and free recall

Multitrial free and serial recall tasks differ both in recall instruction and in presentation order across trials. Waugh (1961) compared these paradigms with an intermediate condition: free recall with constant presentation order. She concluded that differences between free and serial recall were due only to recall instructions, and not to presentation order. The present study reevaluated the relation between free and serial recall, using Waugh's three conditions. By examining recall transitions and the organization of information retained across trials, we conclude that presentation order is an important factor, causing participants to exhibit the same temporal associations in serial recall and in free recall with constant presentation order.     

Predicting children's word‐spelling difficulty for common English words from measures of orthographic transparency,phonemic and graphemic length and word frequency

Spencer demonstrated that spelling and reading difficulty for English words can be predicted from a number of factors, including word frequency, phonemic length and measures of orthographic depth and complexity. In this study, spelling difficulty of high frequency words was investigated across five year groups (ages 7 to 11 years) with a wide ranging series of data sources from which to determine word frequency values and orthographic depth measures. A regression model accounted for 52–66% of the variance for 7‐ to 11‐year‐olds and 72% of the variance for the lowest performing quartile group, irrespective of age. The most influential factor, phonetic difference (being the difference in the number of letters and phonemes in a word, and representing grapheme complexity), links the relative influence of large graphemic units in foundation literacy to a similar phenomenon, the ‘whammy’ effect, which provides support for serial processing in the dual route cascade model of word recognition in skilled readers ( Rastle & Coltheart, 1998 ). The study supports recent research on European orthographies, which concludes that both orthographic depth and complexity contribute to delayed acquisition of foundation literacy skills.     

A quantitative analysis of sequential effects with numeric stimuli

In a simulated absolute judgment task, subjects guessed which numeral would appear next in a random sequence. Feedback was given after every trial. The average response for the nth trial was analyzed as a joint function of both the response and the feedback for the previous trial. The results confirm those of an earlier study by Ward and Lockhead (1971). Two new models are proposed to explain sequence effects in this task of infinite difficulty. Although computer simulations based on the models fit the data reasonably well, problems remain when attempts are made to apply the same theoretical reasoning to absolute judgment tasks involving actual stimuli.     

A comparative study in multiple-factor analysis of neurotic tendency

The original aim of this investigation was to discover what relations exist between race attitudes and certain personality traits. For that purpose, a standard neurotic inventory and an attitude scale were applied to three dissimilar groups of subjects, and the results, obtained by multiple-factor analysis carried out independently for each of the three groups, compared with one another. The components of neurotic tendency, as displayed by each of the three groups, show a high measure of agreement and appear to be reconcilable with other interpretations of neurotic personality. So far as the original aim of the study is concerned, there appears to be a slight but significant tendency for the neurotic factor of hypersensitiveness to affect the race attitudes of Europeans towards the native in South Africa in a negative or unfavorable direction.