The effect of oral vocabulary on reading visually novel words: a comparison of the dual-route-cascaded and triangle frameworks

Dual-route-cascaded (DRC) (e.g. Coltheart & Rastle, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 20 (1994) 1197) and triangle framework (e.g. Seidenberg & McClelland, Psychological Review 96 (1989) 523) predictions were tested regarding the effect of having a word in oral vocabulary prior to reading that same word. Over two sessions, at intervals of 2--3 days, 44 Grade 1 (6--7-year-old) children were aurally familiarized with the sound and meaning of ten novel words (semantic oral instantiation), and with just the sound of another ten novel words (non-semantic oral instantiation). Two to three days later non-word naming performance was significantly more accurate for aurally trained novel words compared to pseudohomophones, which were in turn advantaged over untrained non-words. The semantic manipulation had no effect. Experiment 2 manipulated articulation during (non-semantic) training. Forty Grade 1 children participated. Again, aurally trained items were named more accurately and quickly than equivalently trained pseudohomophones, which were in turn advantaged over untrained non-words. The articulation manipulation had no effect. The results suggest that word-specific phonological information is represented in the reading system independently of semantic or articulatory influences. The results are interpreted as being problematic for both the DRC and triangle frameworks, but more so for the latter.