Phonological effects in visual word recognition: investigating the impact of feedback activation

P. M. Pexman, S. J. Lupker, and D. Jared (2001) reported longer response latencies in lexical decision tasks (LDTs) for homophones (e.g., maid) than for nonhomophones, and attributed this homophone effect to orthographic competition created by feedback activation from phonology. In the current study, two predictions of this feedback account were tested: (a) In LDT, observe homophone effects should be observed but not regularity or homograph effects because most exception words (e.g., pint) and homographs (e.g., wind) have different feedback characteristics than homophones do, and (b) in a phonological LDT ("does it sound like a word?"), regularity and homograph effects should be observed but not homophone effects. Both predictions were confirmed. These results support the claim that feedback activation from phonology plays a significant role in visual word recognition.     

汉字识别中的同音字效应:语音影响字形加工的证据

两个实验考察汉字识别中语音对字形加工产生的影响。实验一采用视觉呈现材料的词汇判断法,没有发现如同英语研究中的同音字效应,实验二采用视、听跨通道的实验范式,首先呈现汉字的语音,然后进行视觉的词汇判断,结果发现,当出现的汉字为低频字时,其同音字越多,词汇判断的时间越长。这说明汉字的识别过程中,语音对低频字字形的加工有一定影响。     

A rose by any other name is not the same: the role of orthographic knowledge in homophone confusion errors

Homophone confusion errors were examined in a series of 6 experiments. Across a variety of tasks, readers consistently made more errors on homophone trials than on control trials. These effects were established in Experiment 1 using a semantic-decision task in which participants judged whether pairs of words were related or unrelated. For both related and unrelated trials, error rates were higher for homophones as compared with controls. Results such as these have previously been taken as evidence for the role of phonology in lexical access and reading. However, differences in orthographic knowledge (more specifically, knowledge of spelling-to-meaning correspondences) across participants and homophone items significantly predicted homophone errors across all tasks. In addition, spelling tasks and multiple-choice questionnaires revealed differences in orthographic knowledge across participants and homophone items. Although these results do not rule out a role for phonology in lexical access, they indicate that homophone confusion errors may also be due to factors other than phonology.     

Homophone effects in lexical decision

The role of phonology in word recognition was investigated in 6 lexical-decision experiments involving homophones (e.g., MAID-MADE). The authors' goal was to determine whether homophone effects arise in the lexical-decision task and, if so, in what situations they arise, with a specific focus on the question of whether the presence of pseudohomophone foils (e.g., BRANE) causes homophone effects to be eliminated because of strategic deemphasis of phonological processing. All 6 experiments showed significant homophone effects, which were not eliminated by the presence of pseudohomophone foils. The authors propose that homophone effects in lexical decision are due to the nature of feedback from phonology to orthography.     

The functions of phonology in the acquisition of reading: Lexical and sentence processing

It has been claimed (V. Coltheart, Laxon, Rickard, & Elton, 1988) that learners as well as skilled readers use phonology for multiple functions in reading-for-meaning tasks. This claim was examined using lexical decision and sentence evaluation tasks. It was found in the first experiment that the type of instruction learners had received determined whether there was prelexical use of phonology in responding to items out of sentence context. Type of instruction had no effect when the items were in context. In the second experiment, performances on a homophone sentence evaluation task and a homophone semantic decision task, which excluded sentence processing, were examined. The results suggest that phonology served the function of access to lexical meanings in addition to any function in postlexical sentence processing. The obtained relationships between relative frequencies of the presented and unpresented homophone mates and item accuracy on these tasks were inconsistent with exclusive use of “direct access” but consistent with access of lexical meanings via phonology and application of a “spelling-check” procedure when multiple homophonic meanings are activated.     

The impact of reader skill on phonological processing in visual word recognition

There has been much debate about the role of phonology in reading. This debate has been fuelled, in part, by mixed findings for phonological effects in lexical decision tasks. In the present research we investigated the impact of reader skill on three phonological effects (homophone, homograph, and regularity effects) in a lexical decision task and in a phonological lexical decision task. In both tasks, the more skilled readers showed different patterns of phonological effects from those of the less skilled readers; in particular, less skilled readers showed regularity effects in both tasks whereas more skilled readers did not. We concluded that more skilled readers activate phonology in these tasks but do so more efficiently, with less spurious phonological activation.     

汉语音节累积词频对同音字听觉词汇表征的激活作用

汉语同音字音节的累积词频是同音单字词的具体词频之和, 即音节作为词被听到的频数, 也称为音节词频。它对词汇通达的作用还没获得一致看法。本文探讨听觉词汇通达中同音字表征的激活如何受累积词频的影响, 构成累积词频的具体词频和同音字数又会在其中起何作用。研究采用跨通道的音-字同音判断范式和配套的协方差分析分离出听觉的词汇表征激活作用。实验1固定同音字数, 同时变化累积词频和具体词频(其中具体高、低频同时也是同音字族内的高、低频), 结果发现具体词频的提高对表征激活有积极作用; 累积词频的提高仅在错误率上产生微弱的抑制作用, 而这个微弱作用可以归结为同音字族内高频字表征的激活对低频字表征的抑制。实验2固定具体词频, 同时变化累积词频和同音字数, 结果发现同音字数增加对表征激活产生抑制, 没有发现累积词频的作用。两个实验的结果说明, 音节累积词频对同音字的听觉词汇表征激活不起确定作用, 能够起作用的是同音字族内的具体词频和同音字数; 但同音字数变化的抑制作用仅在具体词频不变时才发生, 因此起决定作用的是同音字族内高频字表征激活和低频字表征抑制的机制。     

The role of lexical expertise in reading homophones

In Experiment 1, university students classified on lexical expertise on the basis of spelling plus nonword pronunciation accuracy made lexical decisions to homophones and control words. Homophones were accepted as words more slowly than control words, but lexical experts showed a smaller homophone cost than the less skilled group. In Experiment 2, similarly classified groups showed a large difference in their ability to detect homophones, with the low-expertise group showing a yes bias to high-frequency words, and having difficulty detecting homophones when mate-frequency was low. The results suggest superior use of orthography in the lexical experts and more reliance on semantic information in nonexperts, and support the importance of facility with orthography–phonology mappings in lexical expertise.     

Homophone interference effects in visual word recognition

In three lexical decision experiments and one progressive demasking experiment, performance on low-frequency heterographic homophones having a high-frequency mate was compared with performance on non-homophone target words with or without high-frequency orthographic neighbours. Robust homophone interference effects were observed in all experiments, as well as inhibitory effects of neighbourhood frequency. When speed-accuracy trade-offs were reduced, the homophone interference effects were found to be additive with effects of high-frequency orthographic neighbours. Furthermore, the size of homophone interference effects increased when pseudohomophone stimuli were presented among the nonwords. These results are tentatively interpreted within the framework of a bi-modal interactive activation model.     

Skilled adult readers activate the meanings of high-frequency words using phonology: Evidence from eye tracking

We examined whether highly skilled adult readers activate the meanings of high-frequency words using phonology when reading sentences for meaning. A homophone-error paradigm was used. Sentences were written to fit 1 member of a homophone pair, and then 2 other versions were created in which the homophone was replaced by its mate or a spelling-control word. The error words were all high-frequency words, and the correct homophones were either higher-frequency words or low-frequency words—that is, the homophone errors were either the subordinate or dominant member of the pair. Participants read sentences as their eye movements were tracked. When the high-frequency homophone error words were the subordinate member of the homophone pair, participants had shorter immediate eye-fixation latencies on these words than on matched spelling-control words. In contrast, when the high-frequency homophone error words were the dominant member of the homophone pair, a difference between these words and spelling controls was delayed. These findings provide clear evidence that the meanings of high-frequency words are activated by phonological representations when skilled readers read sentences for meaning. Explanations of the differing patterns of results depending on homophone dominance are discussed.     

The role of phonology in the activation of word meanings during reading: evidence from proofreading and eye movements.

Six experiments explored the role of phonology in the activation of word meanings when words were embedded in meaningful texts. Specifically, the studies examined whether participants detected the substitution of a homophone mate for a contextually appropriate homophone. The frequency of the incorrect homophone, the frequency of the correct homophone, and the predictability of the correct homophone were manipulated. Also, the impact of reading skill was examined. When correct homophones were not predictable and participants had a range of reading abilities, the evidence indicated that phonology plays a role in activating the meanings of low-frequency words only. When the performance of good and poor readers was examined separately, the evidence indicated that good readers primarily activate the meanings of words using the direct route, whereas poor readers primarily activate the meanings of words using the phonological route.     

What the tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) says about homophone frequency inheritance

The present study uses tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states as a unique source of evidence to test the hypothesis of lexical access benefits for homophones--that is, whether low-frequency homophones, such as tee, inherit the lexical access benefits of their high-frequency homophonic counterparts, such as tea. We compared retrieval success rates for low-frequency homophones, for matched low-frequency controls, and for high-frequency controls with the combined frequency of the homophone set. In correct retrievals, low-frequency homophones behaved according to their specific frequency, not differing from the low-frequency controls. However, retrieval failures revealed a different kind of homophone effect. When retrieval failed for targets with a homophone partner, access difficulties tended to be less profound than for low-frequency controls, ending closer to target retrieval more often than low-frequency controls (at Step 2; in a self-resolved TOT or in a TOT with a strong feeling of knowing), and ending far away from target retrieval less often than low-frequency controls (at Step 1; in a notGOT). These results provide evidence against the notion of shared word-form representations for homophonic targets but leave open a door for a weaker form of homophone effects, possibly arising from feedback activation that influences retrieval only when access is sufficiently slowed (as when retrieval fails).     

Automatic phonological priming in visual word recognition

Theories of visual word recognition have proposed that a word’s phonological properties can be involved in reading visually presented words. Further, it is commonly supposed that this phonological information can be arrived at in at least two ways: (1) by looking it up after identifying the word visually (a lexical route) or (2) by rule-governed translating of the word’s orthographic code (a nonlexical route), Four experiments were conducted to examine whether phonological information is automatically accessed in visual word recognition, and, if so, how this occurs. A priming technique was used with a display sequence of mask, prime, target, mask. Subjects were asked to make written responses to any words that they thought were present, and prime identification was minimal. A facilitatory effect of phonological priming on target identification occurred when primes were homophones of targets. However, no similar facilitation occurred when the prime was a nonword homophone of the target. Further, the homophone priming effect was found irrespective of whether targets followed the spelling-to-sound rules of English. The results suggest that automatic access to phonology can occur in visual word recognition and that it operates by means of a lexical route.     

Neural correlates of mapping from phonology to orthography in children performing an auditory spelling task

Age-related differences (9- to 15-year-olds) in the neural correlates of mapping from phonology to orthography were examined with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Participants were asked to determine if two spoken words had the same spelling for the rime (corresponding letters after the first consonant or consonant cluster). Some of the word pairs had conflicting orthography and phonology (e.g. jazz-has, pint-mint) whereas other pairs had non-conflicting information (e.g. press-list, gate-hate) (see Table 1). There were age-related increases in activation for lexical processing (across conflicting and non-conflicting conditions) in left inferior parietal lobule, suggesting that older children have a more elaborated system for mapping between phonology and orthography that includes connections at different grain sizes (e.g. phonemes, onset-rimes, syllables). In addition, we found that the conflicting conditions had lower accuracy, slower reaction time and greater activation in left inferior frontal gyrus as compared to non-conflicting conditions. Higher accuracy was also correlated with greater activation in left inferior frontal gyrus for the most difficult conflicting condition (e.g. jazz-has). The finding of both a conflict effect and a correlation with accuracy in left inferior frontal gyrus suggests that this region may be involved in resolving the conflict between orthographic and phonological representations.     

The activation of phonology during silent Chinese word reading.

The role of phonology in silent Chinese compound-character reading was studied in 2 experiments using a semantic relatedness judgment task. There was significant interference from a homophone of a "target" word that was semantically related to an initially presented cue word whether the homophone was orthographically similar to the target or not. This interference was only observed for exact homophones (i.e., those that had the same tone, consonant, and vowel). In addition, the effect was not significantly modulated by target or distractor frequency, nor was it restricted to cases of associative priming. Substantial interference was also found from orthographically similar nonhomophones of the targets. Together these data are best accounted for by a model that allows for parallel access of semantics via 2 routes, 1 directly from orthography to semantics and the other from orthography to phonology to semantics.     

Why did I right that? Factors that influence the production of homophone substitution errors

Despite considerable research on language production errors involving speech, little research exists in the complementary domain of writing. Two experiments investigated the production of homophone substitution errors, which occur when a contextually appropriate word (e.g., beech) is replaced with its homophone (e.g., beach tree). Participants wrote down auditorily presented sentences containing dominant or subordinate homophones. Homophones were preceded by a lexical prime that overlapped in phonology and orthography (e.g., teacher) or only orthography (e.g., headmaster) with the target homophone. Results showed more substitution errors when the context elicited a subordinate homophone than when it elicited a dominant homophone. Furthermore, both types of primes equivalently increased production of homophone errors relative to control words (e.g., lawyer), suggesting that only orthographic overlap between the prime and target was necessary to influence errors. These results are explained within dual-route models of spelling, which postulate an interaction between lexical and sublexical routes when spelling.     

基于语料库统计的“音-形”激活概率及加工机制

为了了解心理词典中语音与汉字的联结情况以及从音到形的加工机制,研究首先计算出了基于语料库统计的“音-形”激活概率(某个音节激活其对应汉字的概率),并通过一个听写实验来验证这种激活概率是否反映实际加工中的激活情况。结果证明基于语料统计得到的“音-形”激活概率基本可以预测实际的“音-形”激活情况,表现为:“音-形”激活概率越高的汉字被激活的概率和强度越高,并且有明显的优势字效应; 该统计概率具有可独立于其他影响因素的预测功能。     

句子语境中汉语词汇形、音作用的眼动研究

采用眼动方法, 通过两个实验考查了句子语境中汉语词汇形、音的作用及其作用的时间进程。结果发现：(1)在高限制性句子语境中, 音同的凝视时间和总注视时间显著短于无关控制; (2)在低限制性句子语境中, 音同、形似的首视时间均显著短于无关控制; (3)词频效应出现在低限制性句子语境中。该结果表明, 句子语境影响词汇形、音的作用及作用的时间进程, 汉语词汇的意义可以由字形直接通达, 也可以由形和音两条路径得到通达。     

The KEY to the ROCK: Near-homophony in nonnative visual word recognition

To test the hypothesis that native language (L1) phonology can affect the lexical representations of nonnative words, a visual semantic-relatedness decision task in English was given to native speakers and nonnative speakers whose L1 was Japanese or Arabic. In the critical conditions, the word pair contained a homophone or near-homophone of a semantically associated word, where a near-homophone was defined as a phonological neighbor involving a contrast absent in the speaker’s L1 (e.g., ROCK-LOCK for native speakers of Japanese). In all participant groups, homophones elicited more false positive errors and slower processing than spelling controls. In the Japanese and Arabic groups, near-homophones also induced relatively more false positives and slower processing. The results show that, even when auditory perception is not involved, recognition of nonnative words and, by implication, their lexical representations are affected by the L1 phonology.     

语音与词义激活的相对时间进程:来自儿童发展的证据

本研究从儿童语言发展的角度．在已有研究基础上．进一步考察了汉语视觉字词加工中语音与词义激活的相对时间进程。运用启动命名技术,比较了三年级和六年级儿童在语音和语义启动中的表现。结果发现,三年级和六年级儿童都有语音和语义启动效应,且六年级儿童更为显著。但语义启动和同音启动的促进效应之间没有差异,而同音不同声调启动则可能产生抑制作用。文章探讨了这些发现对汉语视觉字词加工中词义信息提取不同观点的含义。