The spread of the phonological neighborhood influences spoken word recognition

In three experiments, the processing of words that had the same overall number of neighbors but varied in the spread of the neighborhood (i.e., the number of individual phonemes that could be changed to form real words) was examined. In an auditory lexical decision task, a naming task, and a same-different task, words in which changes at only two phoneme positions formed neighbors were responded to more quickly than words in which changes at all three phoneme positions formed neighbors. Additional analyses ruled out an account based on the computationally derived uniqueness points of the words. Although previous studies (e.g., Luce & Pisoni, 1998) have shown that the number of phonological neighbors influences spoken word recognition, the present results show that the nature of the relationship of the neighbors to the target word--as measured by the spread of the neighborhood--also influences spoken word recognition. The implications of this result for models of spoken word recognition are discussed.     

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.     

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.     

Prosodic phonological representations early in visual word recognition

Two experiments examined the nature of the phonological representations used during visual word recognition. We tested whether a minimality constraint (R. Frost, 1998) limits the complexity of early representations to a simple string of phonemes. Alternatively, readers might activate elaborated representations that include prosodic syllable information before lexical access. In a modified lexical decision task (Experiment 1), words were preceded by parafoveal previews that were congruent with a target's initial syllable as well as previews that contained 1 letter more or less than the initial syllable. Lexical decision times were faster in the syllable congruent conditions than in the incongruent conditions. In Experiment 2, we recorded brain electrical potentials (electroencephalograms) during single word reading in a masked priming paradigm. The event-related potential waveform elicited in the syllable congruent condition was more positive 250-350 ms posttarget compared with the waveform elicited in the syllable incongruent condition. In combination, these experiments demonstrate that readers process prosodic syllable information early in visual word recognition in English. They offer further evidence that skilled readers routinely activate elaborated, speechlike phonological representations during silent reading.     

Sequential effects of phonological priming in visual word recognition

Two masked priming experiments were conducted to examine phonological priming of bisyllabic words in French, and in particular, whether it operates sequentially or in parallel. Bisyllabic target words were primed by pseudowords that shared either the first or the second phonological syllable of the target. Overlap of the first syllable only-not the second-produced facilitation in both the lexical decision and the naming tasks. These findings suggest that, for polysyllabic words, phonological codes are computed sequentially during silent reading and reading aloud.     

Context-dependent migrations in visual word perception

In the present study we investigate the effect of context--that is, a prime--on migration errors. Migration errors, or migrations, are caused by perceptual interactions between two words in a visual display, such as line-lace. After postcuing, subjects sometimes report lane or lice, instead of the requested word line. This phenomenon has been demonstrated by previous studies. In the experiments reported here, we replicate this phenomenon. We also find that more migrations of the lane type occur (compared with lice type), when the display line-lace is preceded by a prime related to lane (but not to lice). This shows that higher order word knowledge, in the form of semantic relations between words, influences the migration phenomenon. Further, we show that the number of migration errors are not a result of only a summation of activation from the letters in the display. The method we developed to isolate context-dependent migrations also gives valuable information about the effect of contextual information on word perception.     

The influence of spelling on phonological encoding in word reading, object naming, and word generation

Does the spelling of a word mandatorily constrain spoken word production, or does it do so only when spelling is relevant for the production task at hand? Damian and Bowers (2003) reported spelling effects in spoken word production in English using a prompt-response word generation task. Preparation of the response words was disrupted when the responses shared initial phonemes that differed in spelling, suggesting that spelling constrains speech production mandatorily. The present experiments, conducted in Dutch, tested for spelling effects using word production tasks in which spelling was clearly relevant (oral reading in Experiment 1) or irrelevant (object naming and word generation in Experiments 2 and 3, respectively). Response preparation was disrupted by spelling inconsistency only with the word reading, suggesting that the spelling of a word constrains spoken word production in Dutch only when it is relevant for the word production task at hand.     

The influence of visual short-term memory on size perception

We show that perceived size of visual stimuli can be altered by matches between the contents of visual short-term memory and stimuli in the scene. Observers were presented with a colour cue (to hold in working memory or to merely identify) and subsequently had to indicate which of the two different-coloured objects presented simultaneously on the screen appeared bigger (or smaller). One of the two objects for size judgements had the same colour as the cue (matching stimulus) and the other did not (mismatching stimulus). Perceived object size was decreased by the reappearance of the recently seen cue, as there were more size judgement errors on trials where the matching stimulus was physically bigger (relative to the mismatching stimulus) than on trials where the matching stimulus was physically smaller. The effect occurred regardless of whether the visual cue was actively maintained in working memory or was merely identified. The effect was unlikely generated by the allocation of attention, because shifting attention to a visual stimulus actually increased its perceived size. The findings suggest that visual short-term memory, whether explicit or implicit, can decrease the perceived size of subsequent visual stimuli.     

Orthographic and phonological activation in auditory and visual word recognition

A discrete-trials color naming (Stroop)’paradigm was used to examine activation along orthographic and phonological dimensions in visual and auditory word recognition. Subjects were presented a prime word, either auditorily or visually, followed 200 msec later by a target word printed in a color. The orthographic and phonological similarity of prime-target pairs varied. Color naming latencies were longer when the primes and targets were orthographically and/or phonologically similar than when they were unrelated. This result obtained for both prime presentation modes. The results suggest that word recognition entails activation of multiple codes and priming of orthographically and phonologically similar words.     

Semantic and phonological influences on visual word learning in a transparent language

Orthographic representations of words are indispensable for reading fluency. The ways in which these representations are developed and their resistance to decay are hotly debated topics. The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of semantic and phonological representations on the formation of orthographic representations in a transparent orthography. In order to achieve this objective, an experiment with three conditions was carried out. In the first condition, a group of university students were asked to repeatedly read 10 new words after semantic and phonological training, in the second condition another group of participants read the new words after phonological training, and in the third condition participants read without previous training. Finally, a follow-up session was performed to test the resistance to decay of the orthographic representations. The results showed that participants who had received semantic training formed the representations faster than participants in the other conditions, as indicated by the decrease in length effect. These results indicate the important role of previous knowledge when people face new written words. A month later these orthographic representations still remained in the lexicon of the participants.     

The influence of orthographic experience on the development of phonological preparation in spoken word production

Three sets of experiments using the picture naming tasks with the form preparation paradigm investigated the influence of orthographic experience on the development of phonological preparation unit in spoken word production in native Mandarin-speaking children. Participants included kindergarten children who have not received formal literacy instruction, Grade 1 children who are comparatively more exposed to the alphabetic pinyin system and have very limited Chinese character knowledge, Grades 2 and 4 children who have better character knowledge and more exposure to characters, and skilled adult readers who have the most advanced character knowledge and most exposure to characters. Only Grade 1 children showed the form preparation effect in the same initial consonant condition (i.e., when a list of target words shared the initial consonant). Both Grade 4 children and adults showed the preparation effect when the initial syllable (but not tone) among target words was shared. Kindergartners and Grade 2 children only showed the preparation effect when the initial syllable including tonal information was shared. These developmental changes in phonological preparation could be interpreted as a joint function of the modification of phonological representation and attentional shift. Extensive pinyin experience encourages speakers to attend to and select onset phoneme in phonological preparation, whereas extensive character experience encourages speakers to prepare spoken words in syllables.     

Effects of phonological and orthographic neighbourhood density interact in visual word recognition

The present study investigated the role of phonological and orthographic neighbourhood density in visual word recognition. Three mechanisms were identified that predict distinct facilitatory or inhibitory effects of each variable. The lexical competition account predicts overall inhibitory effects of neighbourhood density. The global activation (familiarity) account predicts overall facilitatory effects of neighbourhood density. Finally, the cross-code consistency account predicts an interaction, with inhibition of phonological neighbours in sparse orthographic regions and facilitation of phonological neighbours in dense orthographic regions. In Experiment 1 (lexical decision), a cross-over interaction was indeed found, supporting the prediction of the cross-code consistency account. In Experiment 2, this cross-over interaction was exaggerated by adding pseudohomo-phone stimuli (e.g., brane) among the nonword targets. Finally, in Experiment 3 (progressive demasking), we tried to shift the balance between inhibitory and facilitatory mechanisms by using a perceptual identification task. As predicted, the inhibitory effects of phonological neighbourhood were amplified, whereas the facilitatory effects disappeared. We conclude that the level of compatibility across co-activated orthographic and phonological representations is a major causal factor underlying this pattern of effects.     

On the role of competing word units in visual word recognition: the neighborhood frequency effect

Current models of word recognition generally assume that word units orthographically similar to a stimulus word are involved in the visual recognition of this word. We refer to this set of orthographically similar words as an orthographic neighborhood. Two experiments are presented that investigate the ways in which the composition of this neighborhood can affect word recognition. The data indicate that the presence in the neighborhood of at least one unit of higher frequency than the stimulus word itself results in interference in stimulus word processing. Lexical decision latencies (Experiment 1) and gaze durations (Experiment 2) to words with one neighbor of higher frequency were significantly longer than to words without a more frequent neighbor. This neighborhood frequency effect is discussed in terms of the different types of candidate selection process postulated by contemporary models of visual word recognition.     

Reading action word affects the visual perception of biological motion

In the present study, we investigate whether reading an action-word can influence subsequent visual perception of biological motion. The participant's task was to perceptually judge whether a human action identifiable in the biological motion of a point-light display embedded in a high density mask was present or not in the visual sequence, which lasted for 633 ms on average. Prior to the judgement task, participants were exposed to an abstract verb or an action verb for 500 ms, which was related to the human action according to a congruent or incongruent semantic relation. Data analysis showed that correct judgements were not affected by action verbs, whereas a facilitation effect on response time (49 ms on average) was observed when a congruent action verb primed the judgement of biological movements. In relation with the existing literature, this finding suggests that the perception, the planning and the linguistic coding of motor action are subtended by common motor representations.     

The effect of phonological neighborhood density on eye movements during reading

Recent research has indicated that phonological neighbors speed processing in a variety of isolated word recognition tasks. Nevertheless, as these tasks do not represent how we normally read, it is not clear if phonological neighborhood has an effect on the reading of sentences for meaning. In the research reported here, we evaluated whether phonological neighborhood density influences reading of target words embedded in sentences. The eye movement data clearly revealed that phonological neighborhood facilitated reading. This was evidenced by shorter fixations for words with large neighborhoods relative to words with small neighborhoods. These results are important in indicating that phonology is a crucial component of reading and that it affects early lexical processing.     

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.     

The relationship between phonological skills and word decoding

Word decoding ability is a critical factor in reading performance. In the present study, we examined the relationship between word decoding ability and three different phonological skills; phonemic awareness, verbal short-term memory (V-STM), and rapid automatic naming (RAN) in 1007 Scandinavian third- and fifth-graders. In the first part of the study, we sought to investigate the influence of the three phonological skills on word decoding ability. Using multiple regression analysis, our result clearly demonstrated that phonemic awareness was the most powerful phonological skill explaining variance in word decoding ability among average decoders. Among children with poor decoding skills, however, RAN was the most important factor in Grade 3, whereas V-STM was the main contributor to decoding ability among children in Grade 5. In the second part of the research, we examined the relationship between poor phonological skills and word decoding ability. Interestingly, our result revealed that approximately one half of the children with phonological difficulties, still performed within the average range with regard to word decoding ability. However, our analyses confirmed earlier research concerning the severe word decoding difficulties children with both poor phonemic awareness and restricted V-STM, experience.