The Role of Orthographic Neighborhood Size Effects in Chinese Word Recognition

Previous studies about the orthographic neighborhood size (NS) in Chinese have overlooked the morphological processing, and the co-variation between the character frequency and the the NS. The present study manipulated the word frequency and the NS simultaneously, with the leading character frequency controlled, to explore their influences on word lexical decision (Experiment 1) and naming (Experiment 2). The results showed a robust effect that words with a larger NS produced shorter reaction time than those with a smaller NS, irrespective of the word frequency and the tasks. This facilitative effect may occur due to a semantic network formed by neighbor words, resulting in the semantic activation to accelerate the word recognition. Moreover, the comparison of the effect sizes of word frequency between the two tasks showed that lexical decision responses demonstrated a larger word frequency effect, indicating that the sub-word processing was involved in the multi-character word recognition.     

The Role of Attention in Word Recognition: Results from OB1-Reader

When reading, orthographic information is extracted not only from the word the reader is looking at, but also from adjacent words in the parafovea. Here we examined, using the recently introduced OB1-reader computational model, how orthographic information can be processed in parallel across multiple words and how orthographic information can be integrated across time and space. Although OB1-reader is a model of text reading, here we used it to simulate single-word recognition experiments in which parallel processing has been shown to play a role by manipulating the surrounding context in flanker and priming paradigms. In flanker paradigms, observers recognize a central word flanked by other letter strings located left and right of the target and separated from the target by a space. The model successfully accounts for the finding that such flankers can aid word recognition when they contain bigrams of the target word, independent of where those flankers are in the visual field. In priming experiments, in which the target word is preceded by a masked prime, the model accounts for the finding that priming occurs independent of whether the prime and target word are in the same location or not. Crucial to these successes is the key role that spatial attention plays within OB1-reader, as it allows the model to receive visual input from multiple locations in parallel, while limiting the kinds of errors that can potentially occur under such spatial pooling of orthographic information.     

The Dynamics of Visual Word Recognition

This article provides an overview of a dynamical systems approach to visual word recognition. In this approach, the dynamics of word recognition are characterized in terms of a connectionist network model. According to this model, seeing a word results in changes in the pattern of activation over the nodes in the lexical network such that, over time, the network moves into an attractor state representing the orthographic, phonological, and semantic properties of that word. At a slower timescale, a learning process modifies the strengths of the connections among the nodes in a way that attunes the network to the statistical regularities in its environment. This view of word identification accommodates a wide body of empirical results, a representative sampling of which is discussed here. Finally, the article closes with a discussion of some of the theoretical issues that should be addressed as the dynamical approach continues to develop.     

语素意识对小学生阅读流畅性的影响:汉字识别的中介作用

为了考察汉字识别在语素意识和阅读流畅性之间的作用,本研究通过对小学一至六年级856名儿童的语素意识、汉字识别和阅读流畅性的测查,采用结构方程模型进行分析,结果发现:(1)语素意识在整个小学阶段都影响阅读流畅性;(2)在一至五年级,汉字识别在语素意识和阅读流畅性之间起着中介作用;在六年级,其中介作用不显著。结果表明,语素意识可以促进阅读流畅性发展,且年级越低,汉字识别在其中的中介作用越大。     

文字加工中的正字法家族效应

正字法家族效应是指正字法邻近词越多, 家族越大, 单词识别越快的一种现象。一般使用词汇判断、语义分类任务、快速命名等实验范式研究。影响家族效应的因素有家族词的频率、材料的语言和家族在单词中的位置等。家族效应表现在150~300ms窗口中的早期成分和更大的N400上。家族效应可能与左大脑半球的不同脑区的的语义激活有关, 也可能与中背外侧前额的执行控制功能有关。家族效应的理论模型主要有：多重标准识别模型、交互激活模型和双通路瀑布式模型等。将来的研究可尝试从实验材料和研究方法等方面进行拓展。     

语素语义信息对言语听辨的影响

实验主要探讨双字词中语素的语义信息对言语听辨的影响。实验采用语义判断任务,实验材料为双字词首字完整语音分别加上尾字的80毫秒、120毫秒、160毫秒、200毫秒4个语音片段,让被试进行听觉词汇判断任务。实验1选用48组双字词作为关键材料,48组作为填充材料,被试根据听到的语音片段判断该词是否为人词,如,“教师”为人词,“非洲”为非人词;实验2选用了56组关键材料、56组填充材料,任务同实验1。实验结果发现,双字词加工的首字语素语义信息在听词辨认的初始参与了加工,强语义联系对尾字的识别有促进作用,弱语义联系对尾字的识别有抑制作用。初步实验结果支持了言语听辨的多重信息并行激活模型——TRACE模型。     

Early Effect of Phonological Information in Korean Visual Word Recognition: An ERP Investigation with Transposed Letters

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of phonological information on visual word recognition by using letter transposition effects. The Korean writing system gives a unique opportunity to investigate such phenomenon since the transposition of the beginning consonant (onset) and the end consonant (coda) of a certain syllable allows one to keep the coda phonology constant while changing the written alphabetic characters. In this study, 23 participants’ ERPs to such transposition cases were compared with the ERPs to cases that do not maintain coda phonology while the participants were performing a go/no-go lexical decision task for visually presented letter strings. The results of the current study showed that transposed materials with original phonological information produce less N250 than both the baseline condition and the transposed materials with different phonological information condition. The results suggest that phonological information is used early in the lexical process in Korean and early orthographic processing is influenced by the characteristics of the grapheme to phoneme conversion process.     

汉语双字复合词识别中语义、词类和构词法信息的激活

以90名中国大学生为被试,采用启动条件下的词汇判断任务,探讨了SOA在57ms、157ms和314ms条件下汉语双字复合词语义、词类和构词法等词汇信息激活的相对时间进程。结果表明,在57ms时语义信息已经被激活,在157ms时语义和词类两种信息均被激活,在314ms时激活了语义、词类和构词法三类信息。汉语双字复合词识别中最先激活语义信息,接着激活词类信息,构词法信息激活最晚。语义和词类信息激活后,随着SOA增加,其激活强度有增强的趋势。语义信息在整个词汇信息激活中占有优势。     

L2 Word Recognition: Influence of L1 Orthography on Multi-syllabic Word Recognition

L2 reading research suggests that L1 orthographic experience influences L2 word recognition. Nevertheless, the findings on multi-syllabic words in English are still limited despite the fact that a vast majority of words are multi-syllabic. The study investigated whether L1 orthography influences the recognition of multi-syllabic words, focusing on the position of an embedded word. The participants were Arabic ESL learners, Chinese ESL learners, and native speakers of English. The task was a word search task, in which the participants identified a target word embedded in a pseudoword at the initial, middle, or final position. The search accuracy and speed indicated that all groups showed a strong preference for the initial position. The accuracy data further indicated group differences. The Arabic group showed higher accuracy in the final than middle, while the Chinese group showed the opposite and the native speakers showed no difference between the two positions. The findings suggest that L2 multi-syllabic word recognition involves unique processes.     

Connectionist Modelling of Word Recognition

Connectionist models offer concretemechanisms for cognitive processes. When these modelsmimic the performance of human subjects theycan offer insights into the computationswhich might underlie human cognition. We illustratethis with the performance of a recurrentconnectionist network which produces the meaningof words in response to their spellingpattern. It mimics a paradoxical pattern oferrors produced by people trying to read degradedwords. The reason why the network produces thesurprising error pattern lies in the nature ofthe attractors which it develops as it learns tomap spelling patterns to semantics. The keyrole of attractor structure in the successfulsimulation suggests that the normal adult semanticreading route may involve attractor dynamics, andthus the paradoxical error pattern isexplained.     

听觉词汇识别的两个理论模型

听觉词汇识别是语言认知的一个非常重要的研究领域(Tyler．1987)。但人们是如何把外在的声音形式转化为内部语言进行加工理解的呢?心理语言学家对这个问题进行了深入而细致的研究和理论探讨。研究者从不同的角度出发,在各自研究的基础上提出了相应的理论模型。下面就对其中较有影响力的两个听觉词汇识别理论做一介绍。     

蒙语词汇识别中语音自动激活的ERP研究

采用快速掩蔽启动范式、Go/No-go范式和事件相关电位（ERP）技术,探讨蒙语词汇识别过程中语音自动激活的时程及对语义通达的作用。实验中要求被试执行一个额外的语义分类任务,对关键刺激不做明显的行为反应。结果发现,SOA为67ms时,语音启动在头皮的额区诱发了明显的P150和N400成分;SOA为167ms时,语音启动在头皮的额区和中央区诱发了明显的P200成分,在整个大脑皮层诱发了明显的N400成分。结果表明,语音在蒙语词汇识别的早期自动激活并促进语义的通达。     

汉字亚词汇部件语音加工的P200效应

亚词汇加工是词汇识别研究中的一个重要领域,本研究考察了早期ERP成分P200如何受到汉字亚词汇部件语音信息的影响。在ERP实验中,被试对顺序呈现的启动字和目标字对进行语义判断。实验中“启动字-目标字”字对共享一个共同的可发音或不可发音的部件（如“吹-砍”、“扬-场”）。对目标字的P200效应分析显示：与部件不发音的目标字相比,部件可发音的目标字所诱发的P200显著增强。这种增强的ERP效应表明P200对汉字识别中亚词汇部件的语音加工非常敏感,其效应变化受到亚词汇语音的单独调节,同时也表明在汉字识别的早期阶段亚词汇部件语音信息就已被激活并在汉字加工中起重要作用。     

Phonological Assimilation and Visual Word Recognition

Are the visual word-processing tasks of naming and lexical decision sensitive to systematic phonological properties that may or may not be specified in the spelling? Two experiments with Hangul, the alphabetic orthography of Korea, were directed at the effects of the phonological process of assimilation whereby one articulation changes to conform to a neighboring articulation. Disyllabic words were responded to more quickly when (a) the final letter of the first syllable and the initial letter of the second syllable specified phonemes that satisfied rather than violated consonant assimilation, and (b) the vowel letters specified harmonious as opposed to disharmonious vowel phonemes. Discussion addressed the possible mediation of assimilation effects by consistency differences and theories that predict broad phonological influences on visual word recognition.     

Mirror Generalization During Early Word Recognition

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research - The “recycling hypothesis” posits that the word recognition system is built upon minimal modifications to the neural architecture used in object...