Morpheme-based reading aloud: evidence from dyslexic and skilled Italian readers

The role of morphology in reading aloud was examined measuring naming latencies to pseudowords and words composed of morphemes (roots and derivational suffixes) and corresponding simple pseudowords and words. Three groups of Italian children of different ages and reading abilities, including dyslexic children, as well as one group of adult readers participated in the study. All four groups read faster and more accurately pseudowords composed of root and suffix than simple pseudowords (Experiment 1). Unlike skilled young and adult readers, both dyslexics and younger children benefited from morphological structure also in reading aloud words (Experiment 2). It is proposed that the morpheme is a unit of intermediate grain size that proves useful in processing all linguistic stimuli, including words, in individuals with limited reading ability (dyslexics and younger readers) who did not fully develop mastering of whole-word processing. For skilled readers, morphemic parsing is useful for reading those stimuli (i.e., pseudowords made up of morphemes), for which a whole-word lexical unit does not exist; where such whole-word lexical units do exist, skilled readers do not need to rely on morphological parsing because they can rely on a lexical (whole-word) reading unit that is larger than the morpheme.     

Isolating visual units in the perception of words and nonwords

In three experiments, reaction times for same-different judgments were obtained for pairs of words, pronounceable nonwords (pseudowords), and unpronounceable nonwords. The stimulus strings were printed either in a single letter case or in one of several mixtures of upper- and lowercase letters. In Experiment 1, the stimuli were common one- and two-syllable words; in Experiment 2, the stimuli included both words and pseudowords; and in Experiment 3, words, pseudowords, and nonwords were used. The functional visual units for each string type were inferred from the effects that the number and placement of letter case transitions had onsame reaction time judgments. The evidence indicated a preference to encode strings in terms of multiletter perceptual units if they are present in the string. The data .also suggested that whole words can be used as functional visual units, although the extent of their use depends on contextual parameters such as knowledge that a word will be presented.     

汉语双字词在心理词典中的表征方式:来自fNIRS的证据

以汉语双字构成的真词与假词为实验材料,22名大学生为被试,采用功能性近红外脑成像技术(f NIRS)和事件相关设计,考察被试在完成词汇判断任务时的大脑激活模式,探索汉语双字词在心理词典中的表征方式。结果发现:(1)在完成真假词判断任务时,被试大脑左侧额叶和左侧颞叶均被激活;(2)与判断假词相比,被试在判断真词时显著地激活左额上回和左额中回。这一结果说明汉语双字词在心理词典中是混合表征的。     

The neighborhood distribution effect in visual word recognition: words with single and twin neighbors

Lexical-decision tasks were used to test the role of neighborhood distribution in visual word recognition. Predictions based on the interactive activation model were generated by running simulations. The data were compared for words with 2 higher frequency neighbors that differed in their neighborhood distribution. The neighbors were "single" when they did not share a neighborhood relationship (e.g., neighbors of flanc: flanc-blanc) or "twin" when they shared a neighborhood relationship (e.g., neighbors of firme: ferme-forme). Results show a facilitatory neighborhood distribution effect on words in Experiments 1 (easy pseudowords) and 3 (difficult pseudowords and easy pseudowords) and on pseudowords in Experiment 2. These data can be accounted for in terms of lexical inhibition in the interactive activation framework.     

Building permanent memory codes: codification and repetition effects in word identification

The studies presented in this article investigate the memory processes that underlie two phenomena in threshold identification: word superiority over pseudowords and the repetition effect (a prior presentation of an item facilitates later identification of that item). Codification (i.e., the development of a single memory code that can be triggered even by fragmented input information) explains the faster and more accurate identification of words than pseudowords. Our studies trace the development and retention of such codes for repeated pseudowords and examine the growth and loss of the repetition effect for both pseudowords and words. After approximately five prior occurrences, words and pseudowords are identified equally accurately in two types of threshold identification tasks, suggesting codification has been completed for pseudowords. Although the initial word advantage disappears, the accuracy of identification still increases with repetitions. The facilitation caused by repetition is not affected much by spacing within a session, but drops from one day to the next, and after a delay of one year has disappeared (new and old words were identified equally well). These results suggest an episodic basis for the repetition effect. Most important, after one year, performance is equal for old pseudowords and new and old words: all these levels are superior to that for new pseudowords, suggesting that the learned codes for pseudowords are as strong and permanent as the codes for words. A model of identification is presented in which feedback from codes and episodic images in memory facilitates letter processing. An instantiation of the model accounts for the major features of the data.     

Functional MRI evidence for an abstract, not perceptual, word-form area

Previous studies have found an area in left ventral visual cortex that responds more to words and pseudowords than to consonant strings. Does this area respond to the perceptual form of wordlike stimuli, or is it responding to some more abstract, linguistic property, such as orthographic regularity (i.e., conformity with the spelling rules of the language)? During a functional magnetic resonance imaging experiment, participants read alternating-case words and pseudowords, which are orthographically regular but are perceptually unfamiliar. These stimuli activated the same area that was activated by pure-case words and pseudowords. These results suggest that the response of the so-called word-form area is not based on perceptual familiarity but rather on some more abstract feature such as orthographic regularity.     

The effect of sublexical and lexical frequency on speech production: An fMRI investigation

There is no consensus regarding the fundamental phonetic units that underlie speech production. There is, however, general agreement that the frequency of occurrence of these units is a significant factor. Investigators often use the effects of manipulating frequency to support the importance of particular units. Studies of pseudoword production have been used to show the importance of sublexical units, such as initial syllables, phonemes, and biphones. However, it is not clear that these units play the same role when the production of pseudowords is compared to the production of real words. In this study, participants overtly repeated real and pseudowords that were similar for length, complexity, and initial syllable frequency while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging. Compared to real words, production of pseudowords produced greater activation in much of the speech production network, including bilateral inferior frontal cortex, precentral gyri and supplementary motor areas and left superior temporal cortex and anterior insula. Only middle right frontal gyrus showed greater activation for real words than for pseudowords. Compared to a no-speech control condition, production of pseudowords or real words resulted in activation of all of the areas shown to comprise the speech production network. Our data, in conjunction with previous studies, suggest that the unit that is identified as the basic unit of speech production is influenced by the nature of the speech that is being studied, i.e., real words as compared to other real words, pseudowords as compared to other pseudowords, or real words as compared to pseudowords.     

The similarities (and familiarities) of pseudowords and extremely high-frequency words: examining a familiarity-based explanation of the pseudoword effect

The pseudoword effect is the finding that pseudowords (i.e., rare words or pronounceable nonwords) give rise to more hits and false alarms than words. Using the retrieving effectively from memory (REM) model of recognition memory, we tested a familiarity-based account of the pseudoword effect: Specifically, the pseudoword effect arises because pseudowords lack distinctive semantic meanings. Because semantics can differentiate orthographically similar words (e.g., horse vs. house), by lacking distinctive semantics, pseudowords have greater interitem similarity than words, and hence more familiarity, which gives rise to the pseudoword effect. Across two sets of simulations, we demonstrate that this account explains the pseudoword effect in addition to accounting for why the pseudoword effect is absent when irregular nonwords are compared with words. Furthermore, our modeling efforts suggest a novel experiment that leads us to the discovery of a new concordant effect. Namely, extremely high-frequency words behave like pseudowords (giving rise to more hits and false alarms than high-frequency words) and also have less distinctive semantics than high-frequency words. We conclude that our work provides strong evidence in favor of the familiarity-based accounts of the pseudoword effect. We discuss the implications of our research with regard to various issues surrounding the pseudoword effect and REM model.     

Enduring influence of the purpose of experiences: Encoding-retrieval interactions in word and pseudoword perception

Letters in words are identified more easily than are letters in nonwords or letters alone. These effects may depend on separate representations of general lexical attributes and of specific contexts, or on memory for particular experiences. We required subjects to associate meanings with some pseudowords and to perform a physical analysis on others. After 24 h, subjects identified pseudowords associated with meanings more accurately than novel or physically analyzed pseudowords. However, perceptual accuracy was independent of recall of meanings, suggesting that meaning was not available as a context-free resource. Instead, perceptual accuracy was correlated with the interdependence of stimulus components in perception, suggesting that encountering pseudowords for different purposes had caused different perceptual organizations, which exercised lasting influence. We concluded that the perceptual advantage of words may be incidental to the purposes for which words are ordinarily processed, and may depend on preservation of particular perceptual experiences.     

Identification and pronunciation effects in a verbal reaction time task for words,pseudowords, and letters

The question addressed in this investigation was whether faster reading and pronunciation of words than orthographically regular pseudowords is due to faster identification or to faster programming and execution of the motor response. In Experiment I, three different response conditions (naming, threechoice signaled responding, and one-choice signaled responding) were employed to separate the identification and articulation processes in a verbal reaction time task. It was found that, for all intents and purposes, single, isolated letters are processed as if they were very short words. Words are read and pronounced 72 msec faster than pseudowords. Words are also pronounced 30 msec faster than pseudowords even if the reader has longer than 1 sec to identify the stimulus (three-choice condition) or to both identify the stimulus and preprogram the response (one-choice condition). The data indicate that words are identified about 52 msec faster and articulated about 30 msec faster than pseudowords. Since the number of response alternatives (one or three) does not interact with stimulus type (letter, word, or pseudoword) in the signaled response control condition, the 30-msec difference is due to response execution and not to differential response programming. Response programming takes in the neighborhood of 236 msec. Experiment 2 investigated the effect of local orthographic context upon the identification of the first letter of a string of letters. No difference was found in identifying the initial letter of words and pseudowords, but the initial letter of these orthographically regular letter strings was identified and named 10 msec faster than the initial letter of orthographically anomalous strings of letters (anagrams). The data from the two experiments are supportive of theories of reading that assume (1) that the letters of visually presented words are processed simultaneously, in parallel, (2) that there is a relatively direct access and retrieval of the phonological memory codes for the names of words, and (3) that orthographically regular pseudowords having no representation in the phonological lexicon undergo a grapheme-to-phoneme transformation that takes longer to finish than the direct spelling-to-sound process used for words.     

Discrimination of English and French orthographic patterns by biliterate children

We investigated whether young English–French biliterate children can distinguish between English and French orthographic patterns. Children in French immersion programs were asked to play a dictionary game when they were in Grade 2 and again when they were in Grade 3. They were shown pseudowords that contained either an English spelling pattern or a French spelling pattern, and they were asked to decide whether each pseudoword should go in an English dictionary or a French dictionary if it became a real word. Comparison groups of monolingual English children, monolingual French children, and English–French bilingual university students were also tested on the task. French immersion students in both grades were above chance in discriminating between the two types of pseudowords but were well below adult performance on the task. Measures obtained in kindergarten showed that early print knowledge had some ability to predict later ability to discriminate between the orthographic patterns of the two languages. Further analyses indicated that exposure to print in each language in Grades 1 to 3 was strongly related to discrimination performance. The findings are interpreted as being consistent with the statistical learning hypothesis.     

Better the DVL you know: acronyms reveal the contribution of familiarity to single-word reading

Current theories of reading are divided between dual-route accounts, which propose that separable processes subserve word recognition for orthographically regular and irregular strings, and connectionist models, which propose a single mechanism mapping form to meaning. These theories make distinct predictions about the processing of acronyms, which can be orthographically illegal and yet familiar, as compared with the processing of pseudowords, which are regular but unfamiliar. This study examined whether acronyms are processed like pseudowords and words. Event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded as subjects viewed familiar and unfamiliar acronyms, words, pseudowords, illegal strings, and--as the targets of the substantive behavioral task--proper names. Familiar acronyms elicited repetition effects on the N400 component, a functionally specific index of semantic activation processes; repetition effects for familiar acronyms were similar in magnitude, timing, and scalp distribution to those for words and pseudowords. The similarity of the brain response to familiar--but--illegal and unfamiliar--but--legal classes of stimuli is inconsistent with predictions of dual-route models of reading.     

新词词素熟悉性影响视觉词切分线索在新词学习中的促进作用

为考察词素熟悉性是否会影响视觉词切分线索在新词学习中的作用,本研究中新词由两类假词构成：第一类假词由两个高频字（高熟悉性词素）组成,第二类假词由两个低频字（低熟悉性词素）组成。实验采用学习-测试范式,将新词镶嵌在句子中供大学生被试阅读。结果发现,相比由低熟悉性词素构成的新词,词间空格在由高熟悉词素构成的新词中起到的促进作用更大。表明在汉语阅读过程中,词素熟悉性可能作为一种线索参与词切分。     

Building higher-order units in tachistoscopic identification: A test of two models

Summary Subjects were shown eight-letter pseudowords tachistoscopically and were asked to report as many letters as possible. The pseudowords, examples of either first- or fourth-order approximation to English, were printed in normal or reversed spelling and were presented in either normal of mirror-imaged letters. Finally subjects were either free to report in any order they wished, or they were instructed to report from left to right or from right to left. With normal letters, the familiarity effect was controlled by the spelling direction, not by the direction of report or the match between direction of report and spelling direction. With mirrored letters, however, order of approximation to English had no effect. The results contradict two existing theories: Mewhort's theory claims that the familiarity of fourth-order materials aids processing at a postcategorical level; it has trouble explaining why the familiarity effect disappeared with mirrored letters and normal spelling. Wolff's theory claims that familiarity aids processing at the feature level; it has trouble explaining why the familiarity effect disappeared with mirrored letters and reversed spelling.     

Identity without form: Abstract representations of letters

Subjects viewed single letters and orthographically regular pseudowords in a tachistoscope at threshold duration. The pseudowords were either all of one case (upper or lower) or they were of mixed case. Letter identity (“A”) and case judgments were required for one letter on each trial. It was found that letter identity was often reported correctly when case was reported incorrectly, even for letters whose upper- and lowercase forms are physically dissimilar (e.g., G-g). This “case effect” was stronger for letters in pseudowords than for letters presented alone. It held across different type fonts, and it occurred even when the upper-and lowercase letters were of different sizes (gEaT) and when the instructions to the subjects stressed the greater importance of case reports over identity reports. The results are consistent with the view that letter identification is an automatic process, the product of which is an abstract representation containing no information about physical form.     

Adaptive memory: enhanced source memory for animate entities

ABSTRACT

The animacy effect refers to enhanced memory for animate over inanimate items. In two studies, we examined whether this memory advantage generalises to source memory. A multinomial processing tree model was used to disentangle item recognition, source memory, and guessing processes. In Study 1, animate and inanimate words were presented at different spatial locations on the screen. Animacy was associated with enhanced source memory for the spatial locations of the items. In Study 2, pseudowords were associated with animate and inanimate properties. Replicating previous results, the pseudowords were better remembered when they were associated with animate properties than when they were associated with inanimate properties. What is more, participants had enhanced source memory for the association between the pseudowords and the animate properties. The results strengthen the idea that animate items are associated with richer mnemonic representations than inanimate items.     

Phonological mediation in visual masked priming: evidence from phonotactic repair

In a series of 4 experiments, the authors show that phonological repair mechanisms, known to operate in the auditory modality, are directly translated in the visual modality. This holds with the provision that printed stimuli are presented for a very brief duration and that the effect of phonological repair is tested after a delay of some 100 ms has elapsed after that presentation. The case of phonological repair chosen to exemplify the parallelism between print and speech is the prosthesis of /e/ in utterances beginning with /s/ followed by a consonant in Spanish. Native speakers of Spanish hear a prothetic /e/ in auditorily presented pseudowords such as special (/speojal/, derived from "especial") as well as stuto (/stuto/, derived from "astuto"). It is shown here that they also hear that same vowel /e/ when presented with the printed pseudowords "special" and "stuto." This finding of a phonological repair effect in print has implications for the issue of phonological activation from print, as well as for the prelexical locus and mandatory nature of phonological repair mechanisms in general.     

Large-Scale Modeling of Wordform Learning and Representation

The forms of words as they appear in text and speech are central to theories and models of lexical processing. Nonetheless, current methods for simulating their learning and representation fail to approach the scale and heterogeneity of real wordform lexicons. A connectionist architecture termed the sequence encoder is used to learn nearly 75,000 wordform representations through exposure to strings of stress-marked phonemes or letters. First, the mechanisms and efficacy of the sequence encoder are demonstrated and shown to overcome problems with traditional slot-based codes. Then, two large-scale simulations are reported that learned to represent lexicons of either phonological or orthographic wordforms. In doing so, the models learned the statistics of their lexicons as shown by better processing of well-formed pseudowords as opposed to ill-formed (scrambled) pseudowords, and by accounting for variance in well-formedness ratings. It is discussed how the sequence encoder may be integrated into broader models of lexical processing.     

The frequency effect for pseudowords in the lexical decision task

Four experiments were designed to investigate whether the frequency of words used to create pseudowords plays an important role in lexical decision. Computational models of the lexical decision task (e.g., the dual route cascaded model and the multiple read-out model) predict that latencies to low-frequency pseudowords should be faster than latencies to high-frequency pseudowords. Consistent with this prediction, results showed that when the pseudowords were created by replacing one internal letter of the base word (Experiments 1 and 3), high-frequency pseudowords yielded slower latencies than low-frequency pseudowords. However, this effect occurred only in the leading edge of the response time (RT) distributions. When the pseudowords were created by transposing two adjacent internal letters (Experiment 2), high-frequency pseudowords produced slower latencies in the leading edge and in the bulk of the RT distributions. These results suggest that transposed-letter pseudowords may be more similar to their base words than replacement-letter pseudowords. Finally, when participants performed a go/no-go lexical decision task with one-letter different pseudowords (Experiment 4), high-frequency pseudowords yielded substantially faster latencies than low-frequency pseudowords, which suggests that the lexical entries of high-frequency words can be verified earlier than the lexical entries of low-frequency words. The implications of these results for models of word recognition and lexical decision are discussed.