Learning To Read Words

The ease with which we process the written word belies its complexities and makes it easy to forget that it is a highly skilled behaviour and one that takes time to master. In this paper, I argue that our ability to read words has its roots in our capacity for language. Good progress has been made towards understanding how children discover the systematic relationship between speech sounds and the letters used to represents those sounds, very early in reading development. However, we understand much less about how beginning readers become skilled readers. To understand this, I argue that it is important to view the visual word recognition system within the context of a broader language system, one that incorporates a rich network of semantic and episodic knowledge.     

Visual experience is not necessary for efficient survey spatial cognition: Evidence from blindness

This study investigated whether the lack of visual experience affects the ability to create spatial inferential representations of the survey type. We compared the performance of persons with congenital blindness and that of blindfolded sighted persons on four survey representation-based tasks (Experiment 1). Results showed that persons with blindness performed better than blindfolded sighted controls. We repeated the same tests introducing a third group of persons with late blindness (Experiment 2). This last group performed better than blindfolded sighted participants, whereas differences between participants with late and congenital blindness were nonsignificant. The present findings are compatible with results of other studies, which found that when visual perception is lacking, skill in gathering environmental spatial information provided by nonvisual modalities may contribute to a proper spatial encoding. It is concluded that, although it cannot be asserted that total lack of visual experience incurs no cost, our findings are further evidence that visual experience is not a necessary condition for the development of spatial inferential complex representations.     

What exactly is a yait anyway: The role of semantics in orthographic learning

This study investigated whether semantic information presented along with novel printed nonwords facilitates orthographic learning and examined predictors of individual differences in this important literacy skill. A sample of 35 fourth graders was tested on a variety of language and literacy tests, and participants were then exposed to 10 target nonwords, 5 of which were presented with semantic information. Children were tested 1 and 4 days later on their ability to correctly recognize and spell the target nonwords. Results revealed a significant main effect on the recognition task, where items presented with semantic information were identified correctly more often than were words presented in isolation. No significant effect of training condition was found for the spelling posttests. Furthermore, multiple regression analyses revealed that both phonological and semantic factors were significant predictors of orthographic learning. The findings support the view that orthographic learning, as measured through visual recognition, involves the integration of phonological, orthographic, and semantic representations.     

The relationship between knowing a word and reading it aloud in children’s word reading development

This experiment examined the item-level relationship between 7-year-olds’ ability to read words aloud and their knowledge of the same words in the oral domain. Two types of knowledge were contrasted: familiarity with the phonological form of the word (lexical phonology), measured by auditory lexical decision, and semantic knowledge, measured by a definitions task. Overall, there was a robust relationship between word knowledge and reading aloud success. The association was stronger when words contained irregular spelling-sound correspondences. There was no evidence that a deeper or more semantic knowledge of words was more closely related to reading aloud success beyond the association between reading success and familiarity with the phonological form of the same words. This finding is not compatible with models that see semantics as contributing directly to the reading aloud process, at least during the relatively early stages of reading development. More critical was whether or not a word was considered a lexical item, as indexed by auditory lexical decision performance.     

Basic processes in reading aloud and colour naming: Towards a better understanding of the role of spatial attention

Whether or not lexical access from print requires spatial attention has been debated intensively for the last 30 years. Studies involving colour naming generally find evidence that “unattended” words are processed. In contrast, reading-based experiments do not find evidence of distractor processing. One theory ascribes the discrepancy to weaker attentional demands for colour identification. If colour naming does not capture all of a subject's attention, the remaining attentional resources can be deployed to process the distractor word. The present study combined exogenous spatial cueing with colour naming and reading aloud separately and found that colour naming is less sensitive to the validity of a spatial cue than is reading words aloud. Based on these results, we argue that colour naming studies do not effectively control attention so that no conclusions about unattended distractor processing can be drawn from them. Thus we reiterate the consistent conclusion drawn from reading aloud and lexical decision studies: There is no word identification without (spatial) attention.     

Size matters: Bigger is faster

A largely unexplored aspect of lexical access in visual word recognition is “semantic size”—namely, the real-world size of an object to which a word refers. A total of 42 participants performed a lexical decision task on concrete nouns denoting either big or small objects (e.g., bookcase or teaspoon). Items were matched pairwise on relevant lexical dimensions. Participants' reaction times were reliably faster to semantically “big” versus “small” words. The results are discussed in terms of possible mechanisms, including more active representations for “big” words, due to the ecological importance attributed to large objects in the environment and the relative speed of neural responses to large objects.     

Orthographic learning via self-teaching in children learning to read English: effects of exposure, durability, and context

This experiment investigated orthographic learning via self-teaching in 8- and 9-year-olds learning to read English. Children were exposed to novel words, and following a 1- or 7-day delay interval, orthographic learning was assessed by asking children to select previously seen novel words from an array of visually and phonologically similar foils. Novel words were exposed either in meaningful text or in isolation, and number of exposures was manipulated with each novel word appearing once, twice, or four times. Learning increased as a function of number of exposures, although some evidence of durable one-trial learning was observed. Context played no role, suggesting that orthographic learning is not dependent on meaning-based information. In general, these findings offer support for the central aspects of Share's self-teaching hypothesis. However, although we observed a general relation between phonological decoding and orthographic learning, the relation did not hold at an item-by-item level of analysis, suggesting that a strong version of Share's item-based account is not correct.     

Semantic interference in picture naming during dual-task performance does not vary with reading ability

Previous dual-task studies examining the locus of semantic interference of distractor words in picture naming have obtained diverging results. In these studies, participants manually responded to tones and named pictures while ignoring distractor words (picture–word interference, PWI) with varying stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between tone and PWI stimulus. Whereas some studies observed no semantic interference at short SOAs, other studies observed effects of similar magnitude at short and long SOAs. The absence of semantic interference in some studies may perhaps be due to better reading skill of participants in these than in the other studies. According to such a reading-ability account, participants’ reading skill should be predictive of the magnitude of their interference effect at short SOAs. To test this account, we conducted a dual-task study with tone discrimination and PWI tasks and measured participants’ reading ability. The semantic interference effect was of similar magnitude at both short and long SOAs. Participants’ reading ability was predictive of their naming speed but not of their semantic interference effect, contrary to the reading ability account. We conclude that the magnitude of semantic interference in picture naming during dual-task performance does not depend on reading skill.     

Repetition priming of access to biographical information from faces

Two experiments examined repetition priming on tasks that require access to semantic (or biographical) information from faces. In the second stage of each experiment, participants made either a nationality or an occupation decision to faces of celebrities, and, in the first stage, they made either the same or a different decision to faces (in Experiment 1) or the same or a different decision to printed names (in Experiment 2). All combinations of priming and test tasks produced clear repetition effects, which occurred irrespective of whether the decisions made were positive or negative. Same-domain (face-to-face) repetition priming was larger than cross-domain (name-to-face) priming, and priming was larger when the two tasks were the same. It is discussed how these findings are more readily accommodated by the Burton, Bruce, and Johnston () model of face recognition than by episode-based accounts of repetition priming.     

Lexical and sublexical processes in the perception of transposed-letter anagrams

Evidence from priming and lexical decision tasks suggests that nonwords created by transposing adjacent letter pairs (TL nonwords) are very effective in activating lexical representations of their base words, because the process of orthographic matching tolerates minor changes in letter position. However, this account disregards the possible role of sublexical processing in reading. TL nonwords are perceptually ambiguous, with lexical and sublexical processing giving rise to conflicting interpretations. The consequences of this ambiguity were investigated in a lexical decision experiment with primes that were either high or low bigram frequency TL versions of target words. Priming effects were much larger for low BF primes (e.g., pucnh–PUNCH) than for high BF primes (e.g., panit–PAINT). This finding is interpreted as evidence that lexical activation can be inhibited by competing output resulting from sublexical processing of TL letter string. We conclude that phonological processing is an important determinant of responses to TL stimuli, and we consider how this interpretation might be accommodated within the dual-route cascaded (DRC) model of word recognition.     

Lexical and sublexical processes in the perception of transposed-letter anagrams

Evidence from priming and lexical decision tasks suggests that nonwords created by transposing adjacent letter pairs (TL nonwords) are very effective in activating lexical representations of their base words, because the process of orthographic matching tolerates minor changes in letter position. However, this account disregards the possible role of sublexical processing in reading. TL nonwords are perceptually ambiguous, with lexical and sublexical processing giving rise to conflicting interpretations. The consequences of this ambiguity were investigated in a lexical decision experiment with primes that were either high or low bigram frequency TL versions of target words. Priming effects were much larger for low BF primes (e.g., pucnh-PUNCH) than for high BF primes (e.g., panit-PAINT). This finding is interpreted as evidence that lexical activation can be inhibited by competing output resulting from sublexical processing of TL letter string. We conclude that phonological processing is an important determinant of responses to TL stimuli, and we consider how this interpretation might be accommodated within the dual-route cascaded (DRC) model of word recognition.     

An experimental comparison between rival theories of rapid automatized naming performance and its relationship to reading

Two studies investigated the degree to which the relationship between rapid automatized naming (RAN) performance and reading development is driven by shared phonological processes. Study 1 assessed RAN, phonological awareness, and reading performance in 1010 7- to 10-year-olds. Results showed that RAN deficits occurred in the absence of phonological awareness deficits. These were accompanied by modest reading delays. In structural equation modeling, solutions where RAN was subsumed within a phonological processing factor did not provide a good fit to the data, suggesting that processes outside phonology may drive RAN performance and its association with reading. Study 2 investigated Kail's proposal that speed of processing underlies this relationship. Children with single RAN deficits showed slower speed of processing than did closely matched controls performing normally on RAN. However, regression analysis revealed that RAN made a unique contribution to reading even after accounting for processing speed. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

Brain networks associated with sublexical properties of Chinese characters

Cognitive models of reading all assume some division of labor among processing pathways in mapping among print, sound and meaning. Many studies of the neural basis of reading have used task manipulations such as rhyme or synonym judgment to tap these processes independently. Here we take advantage of specific properties of the Chinese writing system to test how differential availability of sublexical information about sound and meaning, as well as the orthographic structure of characters, pseudo-characters and “artificial” control stimuli influence brain activation in the context of the same one-back task. Analyses combine a data-driven approach that identifies temporally coherent patterns of activity over the course of the entire experiment with hypothesis-testing based on the correlation of these patterns with predictors for different stimulus classes. The results reveal a large network of task-related activity. Both the extent of this network and activity in regions commonly observed in studies of Chinese reading are apparently related to task difficulty. Other regions, including temporo-parietal cortex, were sensitive to particular sublexical functional units in mapping among print, sound, and meaning.     

The role of syllables in word recognition among beginning Finnish readers: Evidence from eye movements during reading

The eye movements of Finnish first and second graders were monitored as they read sentences where polysyllabic words were either hyphenated at syllable boundaries, alternatingly coloured (every second syllable black, every second red) or had no explicit syllable boundary cues (e.g., ta-lo vs. talo vs. talo = “house”). The results showed that hyphenation at syllable boundaries slows down reading of first and second graders even though syllabification by hyphens is very common in Finnish reading instruction, as all first-grade textbooks include hyphens at syllable boundaries. When hyphens were positioned within a syllable (t-alo vs. ta-lo), beginning readers were even more disrupted. Alternate colouring did not affect reading speed, no matter whether colours signalled syllable structure or not. The results show that beginning Finnish readers prefer to process polysyllabic words via syllables rather than letter by letter. At the same time they imply that hyphenation encourages sequential syllable processing, which slows down the reading of children, who are already capable of parallel syllable processing or recognising words directly via the whole-word route.     

The Modulation of Visual and Task Characteristics of a Writing System on Hemispheric Lateralization in Visual Word Recognition—A Computational Exploration

Through computational modeling, here we examine whether visual and task characteristics of writing systems alone can account for lateralization differences in visual word recognition between different languages without assuming influence from left hemisphere (LH) lateralized language processes. We apply a hemispheric processing model of face recognition to visual word recognition; the model implements a theory of hemispheric asymmetry in perception that posits low spatial frequency biases in the right hemisphere and high spatial frequency (HSF) biases in the LH. We show two factors that can influence lateralization: (a) Visual similarity among words: The more similar the words in the lexicon look visually, the more HSF/LH processing is required to distinguish them, and (b) Requirement to decompose words into graphemes for grapheme‐phoneme mapping: Alphabetic reading (involving grapheme‐phoneme conversion) requires more HSF/LH processing than logographic reading (no grapheme‐phoneme mapping). These factors may explain the difference in lateralization between English and Chinese orthographic processing.     

Is morphological decomposition limited to low-frequency words?

On the basis of data from masked priming experiments, it has been argued that an automatic process of decomposition is applied to all morphologically structured stimuli, irrespective of their lexical characteristics (Rastle, Davis, & New, 2004). So far, this claim has been tested only with respect to low-frequency primes and nonword primes. This is a limitation because some models of morphological processing postulate that only high-frequency complex words are recognized as whole forms. Thus, a more stringent test would be to determine whether high-frequency complex words also show evidence of masked priming. We report an experiment that compares masked-priming effects observed when the primes constitute morphologically structured nonwords (e.g., alarmer–ALARM), low-frequency words with a mean frequency of 2 per million (e.g., notional–NOTION), and high-frequency words with a mean frequency of 60 per million (e.g., national–NATION). These three conditions yielded significant and equivalent effects, lending strong support to the notion of a routine form of decomposition that is applied to all morphologically structured stimuli.     

Time course analyses of orthographic and phonological priming effects during word recognition in a transparent orthography

In opaque orthographies, the activation of orthographic and phonological codes follows distinct time courses during visual word recognition. However, it is unclear how orthography and phonology are accessed in more transparent orthographies. Therefore, we conducted time course analyses of masked priming effects in the transparent Dutch orthography. The first study used targets with small phonological differences between phonological and orthographic primes, which are typical in transparent orthographies. Results showed consistent orthographic priming effects, yet phonological priming effects were absent. The second study explicitly manipulated the strength of the phonological difference and revealed that both orthographic and phonological priming effects became identifiable when phonological differences were strong enough. This suggests that, similar to opaque orthographies, strong phonological differences are a prerequisite to separate orthographic and phonological priming effects in transparent orthographies. Orthographic and phonological priming appeared to follow distinct time courses, with orthographic codes being quickly translated into phonological codes and phonology dominating the remainder of the lexical access phase.     

Tracking the acquisition of orthographic skills in developing readers: masked priming effects

A masked priming procedure was used to explore developmental changes in the tuning of lexical word recognition processes. Lexical tuning was assessed by examining the degree of masked form priming and used two different types of prime-target lexical similarity: one letter different (e.g., rlay-->PLAY) and transposed letters (e.g., lpay-->PLAY). The performance of skilled adult readers was compared with that of developing readers in Grade 3. The same children were then tested again two years later, when they were in Grade 5. The skilled adult readers showed no form priming, indicating that their recognition mechanisms for these items had become finely tuned. In contrast, the Grade 3 readers showed substantial form priming effects for both measures of lexical similarity. When retested in Grade 5, the developing readers no longer showed significant one letter different priming, but transposed letter priming remained. In general, these results provide evidence for a transition from more broadly tuned to more finely tuned lexical recognition mechanisms and are interpreted in the context of models of word recognition.     

Masked phonological priming effects in English: are they real? Do they matter?

For over 15 years, masked phonological priming effects have been offered as evidence that phonology plays a leading role in visual word recognition. The existence of these effects-along with their theoretical implications-has, however, been disputed. The authors present three sources of evidence relevant to an assessment of the existence and implications of these effects. First, they present an exhaustive meta-analytic literature review, in which they evaluate the strength of the evidence for masked phonological priming effects on English visual word processing. Second, they present two original experiments that demonstrate a small but significant masked priming effect on English visual lexical decision, which persists in conditions that may discourage phonological recoding. Finally, they assess the theory of visual word recognition offered by the DRC model (Coltheart, Rastle, Perry, Langdon, & Ziegler, 2001) in the context of their empirical data. Through numerous simulations with this model, they argue that masked phonological priming effects might best be captured by a weak phonological (i.e., dual-access) theory in which lexical decisions are made on the basis of phonological information.