Orthographic influences in spoken word recognition: The consistency effect in semantic and gender categorization tasks

According to current models, spoken word recognition is driven by the phonological properties of the speech signal. However, several studies have suggested that orthographic information also influences recognition in adult listeners. In particular, it has been repeatedly shown that, in the lexical decision task, words that include rimes with inconsistent spellings (e.g., /-ip/ spelled -eap or -eep) are disadvantaged, as compared with words with consistent rime spelling. In the present study, we explored whether the orthographic consistency effect extends to tasks requiring people to process words beyond simple lexical access. Two different tasks were used: semantic and gender categorization. Both tasks produced reliable consistency effects. The data are discussed as suggesting that orthographic codes are activated during word recognition, or that the organization of phonological representations of words is affected by orthography during literacy acquisition.     

Predicting children's word‐spelling difficulty for common English words from measures of orthographic transparency,phonemic and graphemic length and word frequency

Spencer demonstrated that spelling and reading difficulty for English words can be predicted from a number of factors, including word frequency, phonemic length and measures of orthographic depth and complexity. In this study, spelling difficulty of high frequency words was investigated across five year groups (ages 7 to 11 years) with a wide ranging series of data sources from which to determine word frequency values and orthographic depth measures. A regression model accounted for 52–66% of the variance for 7‐ to 11‐year‐olds and 72% of the variance for the lowest performing quartile group, irrespective of age. The most influential factor, phonetic difference (being the difference in the number of letters and phonemes in a word, and representing grapheme complexity), links the relative influence of large graphemic units in foundation literacy to a similar phenomenon, the ‘whammy’ effect, which provides support for serial processing in the dual route cascade model of word recognition in skilled readers ( Rastle & Coltheart, 1998 ). The study supports recent research on European orthographies, which concludes that both orthographic depth and complexity contribute to delayed acquisition of foundation literacy skills.     

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.     

Reading spoken words: orthographic effects in auditory priming

Three experiments examined the involvement of orthography in spoken word processing using a task - unimodal auditory priming with offset overlap - taken to reflect activation of prelexical representations. Two types of prime-target relationship were compared; both involved phonological overlap, but only one had a strong orthographic overlap (e.g., dream-gleam vs. scheme-gleam). In Experiment 1, which used lexical decision, phonological overlap facilitated target responses in comparison with an unrelated condition (e.g., stove-gleam). More importantly, facilitation was modulated by degree of orthographic overlap. Experiment 2 employed the same design as Experiment 1, but with a modified procedure aimed at eliciting swifter responses. Again, the phonological priming effect was sensitive to the degree of orthographic overlap between prime and target. Finally, to test whether this orthographic boost was caused by congruency between response type and valence of the prime-target overlap, Experiment 3 used a pseudoword detection task, in which participants responded "yes" to novel words and "no" to known words. Once again phonological priming was observed, with a significant boost in the orthographic overlap condition. These results indicate a surprising level of orthographic involvement in speech perception, and provide clear evidence for mandatory orthographic activation during spoken word recognition.     

Visual phonology: The effects of orthographic consistency on different auditory word recognition tasks

In this study, we investigated orthographic influences on spoken word recognition. The degree of spelling inconsistency was manipulated while rime phonology was held constant. Inconsistent words with subdominant spellings were processed more slowly than inconsistent words with dominant spellings. This graded consistency effect was obtained in three experiments. However, the effect was strongest in lexical decision, intermediate in rime detection, and weakest in auditory naming. We conclude that (1) orthographic consistency effects are not artifacts of phonological, phonetic, or phonotactic properties of the stimulus material; (2) orthographic effects can be found even when the error rate is extremely low, which rules out the possibility that they result from strategies used to reduce task difficulty; and (3) orthographic effects are not restricted to lexical decision. However, they are stronger in lexical decision than in other tasks. Overall, the study shows that learning about orthography alters the way we process spoken language.     

Orthographic Consistency Affects Spoken Word Recognition at Different Grain-Sizes

A number of previous studies found that the consistency of sound-to-spelling mappings (feedback consistency) affects spoken word recognition. In auditory lexical decision experiments, words that can only be spelled one way are recognized faster than words with multiple potential spellings. Previous studies demonstrated this by manipulating feedback consistency of rhymes. The present lexical decision study, done in English, manipulated the spelling of individual vowels within consistent rhymes. Participants recognized words with consistent rhymes where the vowel has the most typical spelling (e.g., lobe) faster than words with consistent rhymes where the vowel has a less typical spelling (e.g., loaf). The present study extends previous literature by showing that auditory word recognition is affected by orthographic regularities at different grain sizes, just like written word recognition and spelling. The theoretical and methodological implications for future research in spoken word recognition are discussed.     

Differential Effects of Number of Letters on Word and Nonword Naming Latency

The issue addressed in this study is whether there are differential effects of number of letters on word and nonword naming latency. Experiment 1 examined the effect of number of letters on latency for naming high-frequency words, low-frequency words, and nonwords. Number of letters affected latency for low-frequency words and nonwords but did not affect latency for high-frequency words. Number of letters was also negatively correlated with number of orthographic neighbours, number of friends, and average grapheme frequency. Number of letters continued to affect nonword naming latency, but not low-frequency word naming latency, after the effects of orthographic neighbourhood size, number of friends, and average grapheme frequency had been accounted for. Experiment 2 found that number of letters had no effect on the latency of delayed naming of the same words and nonwords. It is concluded that the effect of number of letters on nonword naming reflects a sequential, non-lexical reading mechanism.     

From print to sound in mature readers as a function of reader ability and two forms of orthographic regularity

Four experiments using college students as subjects provide evidence that both highly skilled and less skilled mature readers derive the names of printed words from visual access of the lexicon rather than by phonological recoding. Regularity of pronunciation (regular vs. exception words) as a variable of orthographic regularity effectiveafter visual code formation had no effect either between or within reading ability groups. Less skilled readers made more errors and were slower than highly skilled readers on both types of words. Sing-letter spatial redundancy, as a variable of orthographic regularity that influences the formation of visual codes, served to differentiate the two groups only in naming nonwords. Highly skilled readers used spatial redundancy to offset the effect of array length, whereas less skilled readers did not. Except for high-frequency words, visual access and retrieval of the pronunciation of words was significantly faster for highly skilled readers. Less skilled readers were most disadvantaged in naming nonwords, a task that requires phonological recoding. Overall results support the hypothesis that reading ability in mature readers is related to the speed of word recognition. Highly skilled readers may make more use of variables of orthographic regularity effective in the formation of visual codes.     

Orthographic facilitation and phonological inhibition in spoken word recognition: A developmental study

We investigated the extent to which learning to read and write affects spoken word recognition. Previous studies have reported orthographic effects on spoken language in skilled readers. However, very few studies have addressed the development of these effects as a function of reading expertise. We therefore studied orthographic neighborhood (ON) and phonological neighborhood (PN) effects in spoken word recognition in beginning and advanced readers and in children with developmental dyslexia. We predicted that whereas both beginning and advanced readers would show normal PN effects, only advanced readers would show ON effects. The results confirmed these predictions. The size of the ON effect on spoken word recognition was strongly predicted by written language experience and proficiency. In contrast, the size of the PN effect was not affected by reading level. Moreover, dyslexic readers showed no orthographic effects on spoken word recognition. In sum, these data suggest that orthographic effects on spoken word recognition are not artifacts of some uncontrolled spoken language property but reflect a genuine influence of orthographic information on spoken word recognition.     

Frequency effects in spoken and visual word recognition: evidence from dual-task methodologies

The authors report 3 dual-task experiments concerning the locus of frequency effects in word recognition. In all experiments, Task 1 entailed a simple perceptual choice and Task 2 involved lexical decision. In Experiment 1, an underadditive effect of word frequency arose for spoken words. Experiment 2 also showed underadditivity for visual lexical decision. It was concluded that word frequency exerts an influence prior to any dual-task bottleneck. A related finding in similar dual-task experiments is Task 2 response postponement at short stimulus onset asynchronies. This was explored in Experiment 3, and it was shown that response postponement was equivalent for both spoken and visual word recognition. These results imply that frequency-sensitive processes operate early and automatically.     

The oral and written side of word production in young and older adults: generation of lexical neighbors

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effects of aging on both spoken and written word production by using analogous tasks. To do so, a phonological neighbor generation task (Experiment 1) and an orthographic neighbor generation task (Experiment 2) were designed. In both tasks, young and older participants were given a word and had to generate as many words as they could think of by changing one phoneme in the target word (Experiment 1) or one letter in the target word (Experiment 2). The data of the two experiments were consistent, showing that the older adults generated fewer lexical neighbors and made more errors than the young adults. For both groups, the number of words produced, as well as their lexical frequency, decreased as a function of time. These data strongly support the assumption of a symmetrical age-related decline in the transmission of activation within the phonological and orthographic systems.     

Perceptual and response components in repetition priming of spoken words and pseudowords

Two experiments explored repetition priming effects for spoken words and pseudowords in order to investigate abstractionist and episodic accounts of spoken word recognition and repetition priming. In Experiment 1, lexical decisions were made on spoken words and pseudowords with half of the items presented twice (～12 intervening items). Half of all repetitions were spoken in a “different voice” from the first presentations. Experiment 2 used the same procedure but with stimuli embedded in noise to slow responses. Results showed greater priming for words than for pseudowords and no effect of voice change in both normal and effortful processing conditions. Additional analyses showed that for slower participants, priming is more equivalent for words and pseudowords, suggesting episodic stimulus–response associations that suppress familiarity-based mechanisms that ordinarily enhance word priming. By relating behavioural priming to the time-course of pseudoword identification we showed that under normal listening conditions (Experiment 1) priming reflects facilitation of both perceptual and decision components, whereas in effortful listening conditions (Experiment 2) priming effects primarily reflect enhanced decision/response generation processes. Both stimulus–response associations and enhanced processing of sensory input seem to be voice independent, providing novel evidence concerning the degree of perceptual abstraction in the recognition of spoken words and pseudowords.     

PHONOLOGICAL RECODING OF MIXED-CASE WORDS IN THE PRIMING TASK

The successes of the phonological recoding hypothesis induced us naturally to question the role of orthographic information. Mixed-case words (e.g., tOwEd -> toad vs. tOlD -> toad) were used as a prime in the priming task in order to investigate the locus of an orthographic spelling check, based on the assumption of the phonological recoding hypothesis. Experiment 1 showed that both normal-case prime and mixed-case prime produced significant phonological priming in a short Stimulus Onset Asynchrony (SOA) of the prime and the target. In contrast, Experiment 2, using a long SOA, showed that the mixed-case prime maintained the phonological priming, but the normal-case prime did not. These results indicated that the orthographic spelling check distinguished the normal-case and the mixed-case in a later stage of word recognition, not in an early stage.     

Orthographic neighborhood size effects in recognition memory

This study argues for the importance of physical word features in recognition memory by investigating the influence of orthographic distinctiveness. Experiment 1 demonstrated a mirror effect in ayes/no recognition test by manipulating orthographic neighborhood size. Words with small neighborhoods showed more hits and fewer false alarms than did words with larger neighborhoods. Experiment 2 replicated the neighborhood size mirror effect using null pairs in a forced choice recognition test. Experiment 3 required remember/know judgments in a yes/no recognition task. Experiment 4 used the same yes/no test as did Experiment 1, adding a study task that drew attention away from orthographic information in the study list. The mirror pattern disappeared with the addition of the study task.     

Lexical orthographic knowledge develops from the beginning of literacy acquisition

This study reports two experiments assessing the spelling performance of French first graders after 3 months and after 9 months of literacy instruction. The participants were asked to spell high and low frequency irregular words (Experiment 1) and pseudowords, some of which had lexical neighbours (Experiment 2). The lexical database which children had been exposed to was strictly controlled. Both a frequency effect in word spelling accuracy and an analogy effect in pseudoword spelling were obtained after only 3 months of reading instruction. The results suggest that children establish specific orthographic knowledge from the very beginning of literacy acquisition.     

Children’s and adults’ use of spelling-sound information in three reading tasks

This research examined the effects of irregular spelling and irregular spelling-sound correspondences on word recognition in children and adults. Previous research has established that, among skilled readers, these irregularities influence the reading of only lower frequency words. However, this research involved the lexical decision and naming tasks, which differ from the demands of normal reading in important ways. In the present experiments, we compared performance on these tasks with that on a task requiring words to be recognized in sentence contexts. Results indicated that adults showed effects of spelling and spelling-sound irregularities in reading lower frequency words on all three tasks, whereas younger and poorer readers also showed effects on higher frequency words. The fact that irregular spelling-sound correspondences affected performance on the sentence task indicates that access of phonological information is not an artifact of having to read a word aloud or perform a lexical decision. Two other developmental trends were observed: As children became more skilled in reading, the effects of irregular spelling were overcome before the effects of irregular spelling-sound correspondences; the latter effects were eliminated on silent reading tasks earlier than on the naming task.     

Accent modulates access to word meaning: Evidence for a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition

Speech carries accent information relevant to determining the speaker’s linguistic and social background. A series of web-based experiments demonstrate that accent cues can modulate access to word meaning. In Experiments 1–3, British participants were more likely to retrieve the American dominant meaning (e.g., hat meaning of “bonnet”) in a word association task if they heard the words in an American than a British accent. In addition, results from a speeded semantic decision task (Experiment 4) and sentence comprehension task (Experiment 5) confirm that accent modulates on-line meaning retrieval such that comprehension of ambiguous words is easier when the relevant word meaning is dominant in the speaker’s dialect. Critically, neutral-accent speech items, created by morphing British- and American-accented recordings, were interpreted in a similar way to accented words when embedded in a context of accented words (Experiment 2). This finding indicates that listeners do not use accent to guide meaning retrieval on a word-by-word basis; instead they use accent information to determine the dialectic identity of a speaker and then use their experience of that dialect to guide meaning access for all words spoken by that person. These results motivate a speaker-model account of spoken word recognition in which comprehenders determine key characteristics of their interlocutor and use this knowledge to guide word meaning access.     

Observing neighborhood effects without neighbors

With a new metric called phonological Levenshtein distance (PLD20), the present study explores the effects of phonological similarity and word frequency on spoken word recognition, using polysyllabic words that have neither phonological nor orthographic neighbors, as defined by neighborhood density (the N-metric). Inhibitory effects of PLD20 were observed for these lexical hermits: Close-PLD20 words were recognized more slowly than distant PLD20 words, indicating lexical competition. Importantly, these inhibitory effects were found only for low- (not high-) frequency words, in line with previous findings that phonetically related primes inhibit recognition of low-frequency words. These results indicate that the properties of PLD20--a continuous measure of word-form similarity--make it a promising new metric for quantifying phonological distinctiveness in spoken word recognition research.     

The developmental turnpoint of orthographic consistency effects in speech recognition

The influence of orthography on children's online auditory word recognition was studied from the end of Grade 4 to the end of Grade 9 by examining the orthographic consistency effect in auditory lexical decision. Fourth-graders showed evidence of a widespread influence of orthography in their spoken word recognition system; words with rimes that can be spelled in two different ways (inconsistent) produced longer auditory lexical decision times and more errors than did consistent words. A similar consistency effect was also observed on pseudowords. With adult listeners, on exactly the same material, we replicated the usual pattern of an orthographic consistency effect restricted to words in lexical decision. From Grade 6 onward, this adult pattern of orthographic effect on spoken recognition is already observable.     

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.