Tests of dual process theory: Word priming and recognition

Dual process theory postulates two representational processes: Activation of a representation makes the mental event more easily and automatically accessible. Elaboration of a mental event produces access to the representation through search and retrieval processes. We explored word priming in recognition and in a stem completion task where the primed word was one of several possible completions for a 3-letter stem. The main hypothesis was that priming has similar and parallel effects in the two tasks. The initial presentation (priming) of items was under conditions of either semantic or non-semantic processing. Priming was either direct, by the presentation of the target word, or indirect, by the presentation of phonologically related (rhyming) or semantically related (categorical) items. When priming occurred, RTs increased from direct to phonologically primed and to semantically primed items for both completion and recognition tests. One additional experiment confirmed the absence of semantic processing in the non-semantic condition, and another experiment showed that when response requirements for recognition and completion responses are equated, RTs to the two tests are comparable.     

Advantages and disadvantages of phonological similarity in serial recall and serial recognition of nonwords

The phonological similarity effect (PSE) was studied with lists of nonwords in one task of serial recall and one task of serial recognition. PSE was critically affected by the scoring procedure and the type of phonological similarity involved, and the effect diverged in several ways from the findings of previous studies on words. PSE was absent in serial recall, regardless of scoring procedure, when phonologically similar items that shared the midvowel were compared with phonologically distinct items. PSE was reversed when serial recall and item recall scores of rhyme items and consonant frame items were compared with distinct items, but it was present in the position accuracy score of rhyme lists. In serial recognition, PSE was absent when rhyme lists were compared with distinct lists. Recognition was better for consonant frame lists than for rhyme lists, and there was a marginally significant reversal of PSE when consonant frame lists were compared with distinct lists. In the view of Fallon, Groves, and Tehan's (1999) study and the present study, rhyming improves item recall and serial recall but diminishes position accuracy, regardless of lexicality. But consonant frame lists with differing midvowels have higher item recall, serial recall, and position accuracy scores than do rhyme lists.     

Loci of phonological effects in the lexical access of words written in a shallow orthography

Summary Three experiments are reported that extend previous observations on the slowing of lexical decisions by phonologically ambiguous forms of Serbo-Croatian words relative to the phonologically unambiguous forms of the same words. The phonological ambiguity arises from the presence of letters whose phoneme interpretation differs between the two Serbo-Croatian alphabets, the Roman and the Cyrillic. In the first experiment, target words were preceded by asterisks or by context words that were associatively related and alphabetically matched to the targets. The effect of word contexts (i.e., priming) was greater for phonologically ambiguous than for phonologically unambiguous targets. The second experiment manipulated the alphabetic match of context word and target word. The effect of this manipulation was limited to phonologically ambiguous words. The third experiment reproduced the details of the first with the addition of visual degradation of the target stimuli on half of the trials. The results of the first experiment were replicated but no interaction between context and visual degradation was observed. The discussion focused on phonologically mediated access of Serbo-Croatian words. A model was proposed in which phonological codes are assembled prelexically according to weighted grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules.     

The sound of enemies and friends in the neighborhood

Previous studies (e.g., Pecher, Zeelenberg, & Wagenmakers, 2005) found that semantic classification performance is better for target words with orthographic neighbors that are mostly from the same semantic class (e.g., living) compared to target words with orthographic neighbors that are mostly from the opposite semantic class (e.g., nonliving). In the present study we investigated the contribution of phonology to orthographic neighborhood effects by comparing effects of phonologically congruent orthographic neighbors (book-hook) to phonologically incongruent orthographic neighbors (sand-wand). The prior presentation of a semantically congruent word produced larger effects on subsequent animacy decisions when the previously presented word was a phonologically congruent neighbor than when it was a phonologically incongruent neighbor. In a second experiment, performance differences between target words with versus without semantically congruent orthographic neighbors were larger if the orthographic neighbors were also phonologically congruent. These results support models of visual word recognition that assume an important role for phonology in cascaded access to meaning.     

再认的两种机制及其与启动效应的关系

通过两个实验对两种再认所涉及的心理机制及其与启动效应的关系进行探讨。实验一用高频字和低频字作实验材料,分别测量集中注意和分散注意条件下,两种再认的成绩。结果表明：学习阶段的注意分散使以提取为基础的再认成绩下降,对以熟悉性为基础的再认成绩没有影响。低频字以熟悉性为基础的再认优于高频字,但字频对以提取为基础的再认没有影响。实验二分别测量两种再认项目的补笔正确率。结果表明：以熟悉性为基础的再认的补笔正确率显著高于以提取为基础的再认的补笔正确率。据此可以推论：两种再认可能有不同的心理机制。以提取为基础的再认属于有意识记忆的范畴,以熟悉性为基础的再认属于无意识记忆的范畴。后者和启动效应的心理基础可能是共同的。     

Does Global Context Modulate Cerebral Asymmetries? A Review and New Evidence on Word Imageability Effects

In this article we examine whether the distribution of function across the right and left cerebral hemispheres for lexical processing is influenced by the global context within which words are presented. A review of previously published studies indicates that the ubiquitous right visual field (RVF)/left hemisphere advantage for word recognition may be reduced or eliminated for nouns, content words, or high image words, but only when such items are presented along with verbs, function words, or low image words. However, paradoxically, when the former items are presented in more homogeneous contexts, the RVF advantage is uniformly observed. We propose that the processing efficiency of a hemisphere for a given stimulus depends on that item's relation to the other stimuli provided, that is, the global context. This was examined in a visual half-field experiment that varied whether high and low image nouns were presented in homogeneous (blocked lists) or heterogeneous (mixed lists) contexts. An unvarying RVF advantage was observed for high image words in homogeneous contexts, but this advantage was eliminated when the same items were presented in heterogeneous contexts. We suggest that stimulus heterogeneity maximizes reliance on differing, but complementary, computational biases across hemispheres. Hence, the extent to which the left and right hemispheres are recruited for the recognition of individual word types can vary dynamically with variation in the stimulus environment.     

Suppression effects in rhyme judgement tasks

Orthographic and phonological similarity were orthogonally manipulated in a rhyme judgement task. The effects were assessed of paced versus very rapid articulatory suppression on subjects' ability to make rhyme judgements when pairs of words were presented either simultaneously or successively. It was found that there were consistent suppression effects on the accuracy of subjects' judgements to visually similar non-rhyming pairs (e.g. “pint-tint”), visually dissimilar rhyming pairs (e.g. “fare-wear”) and visually similar rhyming pairs (e.g. “fall-tall), regardless of mode of presentation or speed of suppression. The size of the suppression effect was greatest for the visually similar non-rhyming word pairs. It was argued that subjects need to carry out a recheck for phonological similarity when word pairs are visually but not phonologically similar, and that encoding the words in articulatory form is particularly beneficial for making accurate rhyme judgements to such pairs.     

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.     

Naming regular and exception words: Further examination of the effect of phonological dissension among lexical neighbours

Abstract

It is generally assumed that visual word recognition is accompanied by the activation of lexical representations corresponding to words orthographically similar to the target (neighbours). With regard to the pronunciation of their constituent units, these words can either converge with or diverge from the target pronunciation. The role of the frequency of the divergent pronunciations in print-to-sound conversion was examined in a naming experiment in which subjects pronounced regular and exception words. The results showed that naming latencies for exception words were affected by the orthographic similarity of the target with frequent phonologically divergent words (enemies). In a similar vein, regular words which include the letters G or C (whose pronunciations are contextually determined) and which are orthographically similar to words favouring an incorrect pronunciation of the letter took longer to pronounce than regular controls. A delayed naming experiment indicated that these differences were not attributable to the articulatory characteristics of the items. Finally, it also appeared that enemy frequency influenced naming latencies but not regularisation rates and regularisation latencies. The results are discussed within the framework of current dual-route and parallel distributed processing models of reading.     

Is alphabet biasing in bialphabetical word perception automatic and prelexical?

Phonologically ambiguous Serbo-Croatian words are identified more slowly and erroneously than their phonologically unique counterparts. Five experiments addressed the reduction of these ambiguity effects when Roman (Cyrillic) targets are preceded by consonants unique to the Roman (Cyrillic) alphabet. Alphabet-specific nonword contexts were presented briefly with masking. With forward masking, performance was better when the phonologically ambiguous target words and their preceding nonword contexts were alphabetically congruent. Similarly, where backward masked contexts acted themselves as backward masks for the target stimuli, identification was highest when the context masks were in the same alphabet as the targets. Results were discussed in terms of automatic, prelexical processes within a network model of visual word recognition in Serbo-Croatian.     

Orthographic vs. phonological irregularity in lexical decision

This experiment investigates whether the influence of spelling-to-sound correspondence on lexical decision may be due to the visual characteristics of irregular words rather than to irregularities in their phonological correspondence. Lexical decision times to three types of word were measured: words with both irregular orthography and spelling-to-sound correspondence (e.g., GHOUL, CHAOS), words with regular orthography but irregular spelling-to-sound correspondence (e.g., GROSS, LEVER), and words regular in both respects (e.g., SHACK, PLUG). Items were presented in upper- and lowercase in order to examine the influence of “word shape” on any irregularity effects obtained. The results showed that irregular words with regular orthographies were identified more slowly than regular words in both upper- and lowercase. Words that are both orthographically and phonologically irregular were identified much more slowly with lowercase presentation. However, with uppercase, the lexical decision time for these items did not differ significantly from those of regular words. These data indicate that previous demonstrations of the regularity effect in lexical decision were not due to the unusual visual characteristics of some of the words sampled. In addition, the data emphasize the role of word shape in word recognition and also suggest that words with unique orthographies may be processed differently from those whose orthography is similar to other words.     

Phonology as the source of syllable frequency effects in visual word recognition: Evidence from French

In order to investigate whether syllable frequency effects in visual word recognition can be attributed to phonologically or orthographically defined syllables, we designed one experiment that allowed six critical comparisons. Whereas only a weak effect was obtained when both orthographic and phonological syllable frequency were conjointly manipulated in Comparison 1, robust effects for phonological and null effects for orthographic syllable frequency were found in Comparisons 2 and 3. Comparisons 4 and 5 showed that the syllable frequency effect does not result from a confound with the frequency of letter or phoneme clusters at the beginning of words. The syllable frequency effect was shown to diminish with increasing word frequency in Comparison 6. These results suggest that visually presented polysyllabic words are parsed into phonologically defined syllables during visual word recognition. Materials and links may be accessed at www.psychonomic.org/archive.     

Opposing effects of phonological similarity on item and order memory of words and nonwords in the serial recall task

This study shows that the classical phonological similarity effect (PSE) in immediate serial recall is critically affected by the lexicality of list items, the type of phonological similarity involved, and the scoring procedure. PSE was present in the serial recall score when phonologically distinct words were compared to words that share the middle vowel and end consonant (rhyming lists). PSE was absent in the serial recall score when phonologically distinct words were compared to words that share the initial and final consonants (consonant frame lists). There was a reversal of PSE in serial recall of nonwords when comparing distinct lists to both types of similar lists. Recall accuracy on the other hand was higher for distinct lists regardless of lexicality. Item errors dominated in relation to order errors in the case of nonwords, whereas order errors dominated in relation to item errors in the case of words. Furthermore, order errors were more common for phonologically similar lists, whereas item errors were more common for phonologically distinct lists. This may be the result of intra‐list and inter‐list interference, respectively. The dominance of the former error type may cause a classical PSE, whereas the dominance of the latter error type may cause a reversal of PSE. Finally, an item identification task yielded no evidence of an association between intra‐list interference and discriminability of items in a list.     

Opposing effects of phonological similarity on item and order memory of words and nonwords in the serial recall task

This study shows that the classical phonological similarity effect (PSE) in immediate serial recall is critically affected by the lexicality of list items, the type of phonological similarity involved, and the scoring procedure. PSE was present in the serial recall score when phonologically distinct words were compared to words that share the middle vowel and end consonant (rhyming lists). PSE was absent in the serial recall score when phonologically distinct words were compared to words that share the initial and final consonants (consonant frame lists). There was a reversal of PSE in serial recall of nonwords when comparing distinct lists to both types of similar lists. Recall accuracy on the other hand was higher for distinct lists regardless of lexicality. Item errors dominated in relation to order errors in the case of nonwords, whereas order errors dominated in relation to item errors in the case of words. Furthermore, order errors were more common for phonologically similar lists, whereas item errors were more common for phonologically distinct lists. This may be the result of intra-list and inter-list interference, respectively. The dominance of the former error type may cause a classical PSE, whereas the dominance of the latter error type may cause a reversal of PSE. Finally, an item identification task yielded no evidence of an association between intra-list interference and discriminability of items in a list.     

Hemispheric differences for orthographic and phonological processing

The role of hemispheric differences for the encoding of words was assessed by requiring subjects to match tachistoscopically presented word pairs on the basis of their rhyming or visual similarity. The interference between a word pair's orthography and phonology produced matching errors which were differentially affected by the visual field/hemisphere of projection and sex of subject. In general, right visual field/left hemisphere presentations yielded fewer errors when word pairs shared similar phonology under rhyme matching and similar orthography under visual matching. Left visual field/right hemisphere presentations yielded fewer errors when word pairs were phonologically dissimilar under rhyme matching and orthographically dissimilar under visual matching. Males made more errors and demonstrated substantially stronger hemispheric effects than females. These patterns suggested visual field/hemispheric differences for orthographic and phonological encoding occurred during the initial stages of word processing and were more pronounced for male compared to female subjects.     

Sentence frame contexts and lexical decisions: Sentence-acceptability and word-relatedness effects

Many studies have explored the effects of single-word contexts on visual word recognition, and several models have been proposed to account for the results obtained. However, relatively little is known about the effects of sentence contexts. In the experiment reported, the contexts consisted of sentences with the final word deleted, and subjects made word-nonword (lexical) decisions on target strings of letters. Norms were collected to determine the most common completion for each sentence frame. The experiment yielded three main findings: (1) Lexical decisions were fastest for words that were the most common completions; (2) among words not given as completions in the norming procedure, decisions were faster for words related to the most common completions than for words unrelated to the most common completions; t3t also among words that were not produced as completions, decisions were faster for words that formed acceptable completions than for words that did not. These relatedness and sentence-acceptability effects were independent, so that the relatedness effect held even when the target words formed anomalous sentence completions. In order to account for these results, a model combining two types of processes is required. In the model described, schematic knowledge (Rumelhart & Ortony, 1977) operates upon a semantic network to activate particular nodes, and this activation spreads to related concepts as in the Collins and Loftus (1975) model.     

Priming on perceptual implicit memory tests can be achieved through presentation of associates

Roediger and McDermott (1995) presented lists of semantic associates (e.g.,door, glass, pane, shade, ledge) to induce false recall of related, nonpresented words (e.g.,window). This study procedure was used in an attempt to determine whether associative activation of target words would be sufficient to produce priming on perceptual implicit memory tests. Priming of the nonpresented items occurred on both word stem completion and word fragment completion, but the level of priming was generally lower than for items that had been studied. Priming of the related, nonpresented words occurred on a conceptual implicit test of word association; further, the level of priming was equivalent to that of presented words.     

Automatic activation of categorical and abstract analogical relations in analogical reasoning

We examined activation of concepts during analogical reasoning. Subjects made either analogical judgments or categorical judgments about four-word sets. After each four-word set, they named the ink color of a single word in a modified Stroop task. Words that referred to category relations were primed (as indicated by longer response times on Stroop color naming) subsequent to analogical judgments and categorical judgments. This finding suggests that activation of category concepts plays a fundamental role in analogical thinking. When colored words referred to analogical relations, priming occurred subsequent to analogical judgments, but not to categorical judgments, even though identical four-word stimuli were used for both types of judgments. This finding lends empirical support to the hypothesis that, when people comprehend the analogy between two items, they activate an abstract analogical relation that is distinct from the specific content items that compose the analogy.     

Age-at-acquisition and word recognition

Recent investigations have shown that the latency in object naming is affected by when in life the naming word is learned—the age-at-acquisition of the naming word. The present study investigated the effect of age-at-acquisition in the recognition of tachistoscopically presented words. It was found that, with word frequency controlled, words judged to be of early acquisition had a significantly lower recognition threshold than words judged to be of later acquisition.     

Rapid processing of the meaning of sentences

It has been shown (Fischler & Bloom, 1979) that sentence contexts facilitate a lexical decision task for words that are highly likely sentence completions and inhibit the decision for words that are semantically anomalous sentence completions. In the present experiment, the sentence contexts were presented 1 word at a time, at rates from 4 to 28 words/sec. The facilitation for words that were likely sentence completions was marginal at the slower rates and absent at higher rates. In contrast, the inhibitory effects of semantic anomaly were apparent at all presentation rates. Several analyses suggested that the sentence contexts were becoming ineffective at the very highest presentation rates, but the high rates at which the sentence contexts still affected word recognition were taken as evidence that semantic information accrues at an early stage of sentence processing. Implications for Posner and Snyder’s (1975) theory of attention and for models of reading were discussed.