Skilled readers' sensitivity to meaningful regularities in English writing

Learning new words via reading: The influence of emotional narrative context on learning novel adjectives

People learn new words in narrative contexts, but little is known about how the emotional valence of the narrative influences word learning. In a pre-registered experiment, 76 English-speaking adults read 30 novel adjectives embedded in 60 short narratives (20 positive, 20 negative, and 20 neutral valence). Both immediately after and 24 hr later, participants completed a series of post-tests, including speeded recognition, sentence completion, meaning generation, and valence judgement. Results showed that participants learned both the novel word form and its meaning. Compared with novel words experienced in the neutral contexts, those read in the emotional contexts (both positive and negative) showed better learning of orthographic form in the immediate post-test, but only those read in the negative context were recognised with greater accuracy in the delayed post-test. Furthermore, the valence of the context was reflected in the word meanings participants generated for each novel word, suggesting that word valence can be inferred from the valence of the contexts. Results from sentence completion and valence judgement were mixed, depending on the task demands. These findings are discussed with reference to theories of affective embodiment and the implications for learning abstract words are considered.

DerLex: An eye-movement database of derived word reading in English

This paper introduces a new database of eye-tracking data on English derived words, DerLex. A total of 598 unique derived suffixed words were embedded in sentences and read by 357 participants representing both university convenience pools and community pools of non-college-bound adults. Besides the eye-movement record of reading derived suffixed words, the DerLex database provides the author recognition test (ART) scores for each participant, tapping into their reading proficiency, as well as multiple lexical variables reflecting distributional, orthographic, phonological, and semantic features of the words, their constituent morphemes, and morphological families. The paper additionally reports the main effects of select lexical variables and their interactions with the ART scores. It also produces estimates of statistical power and sample sizes required to reliably detect those lexical effects. While some effects are robust and can be readily detected even in a small-scale typical experiment, the over-powered DerLex database does not offer sufficient power to detect many other effects-including those of theoretical importance for existing accounts of morphological processing. We believe that both the availability of the new data resource and the limitations it provides for the planning and design of upcoming experiments are useful for future research on morphological complexity.

White matter associations with spelling performance

Multiple neurocognitive processes are involved in the highly complex task of producing written words. Yet, little is known about the neural pathways that support spelling in healthy adults. We assessed the associations between performance on a difficult spelling-to-dictation task and microstructural properties of language-related white matter pathways, in a sample of 73 native English-speaking neurotypical adults. Participants completed a diffusion magnetic resonance imaging scan and a cognitive assessment battery. Using constrained spherical deconvolution modeling and probabilistic tractography, we reconstructed dorsal and ventral white matter tracts of interest, bilaterally, in individual participants. Spelling associations were found in both dorsal and ventral stream pathways. In high-performing spellers, spelling scores significantly correlated with fractional anisotropy (FA) within the left inferior longitudinal fasciculus, a ventral stream pathway. In low-performing spellers, spelling scores significantly correlated with FA within the third branch of the right superior longitudinal fasciculus, a dorsal pathway. An automated analysis of spelling errors revealed that high- and low- performing spellers also differed in their error patterns, diverging primarily in terms of the orthographic distance between their errors and the correct spelling, compared to the phonological plausibility of their spelling responses. The results demonstrate the complexity of the neurocognitive architecture of spelling. The distinct white matter associations and error patterns detected in low- and high- performing spellers suggest that they rely on different cognitive processes, such that high-performing spellers rely more on lexical-orthographic representations, while low-performing spellers rely more on phoneme-to-grapheme conversion.

On humans' (explicit) intuitions about the meaning of novel words

Pseudowords offer a unique opportunity to investigate how humans deal with new (verbal) information. Within this framework, previous studies have shown that, at the implicit level, humans exploit systematic associations in the form-meaning interface to process new information by relying on (sub-lexical) contents already mapped in semantic memory. However, whether speakers exploit such processes in explicit decisions about the meanings elicited by unfamiliar terms remains an open, important question. Here, we tested this by leveraging computational models that are able to induce semantic representations for out-of-vocabulary stimuli. Across two experiments, we demonstrate that participants' guesses about pseudoword meanings in a 2AFC task consistently align with the model's predictions. This indicates that humans' ability to extract meaningful knowledge from complex statistical patterns can affect explicit decisions.

Why do languages tolerate heterography? An experimental investigation into the emergence of informative orthography

It is widely acknowledged that opaque orthographies place additional demands on learning, often requiring many years to fully acquire. It is less widely recognized, however, that such opacity may offer certain benefits in the context of reading. For example, heterographic homophones such as ⟨knight⟩ and ⟨night⟩ (words that sound the same but which are spelled differently) impose additional costs in learning but reduce ambiguity in reading. Here, we consider the possibility that-left to evolve freely-writing systems will sometimes choose to forego some simplicity for the sake of informativeness when there is functional pressure to do so. We investigate this hypothesis by simulating the evolution of orthography as it is transmitted from one generation to the next, both with and without a communicative pressure for ambiguity avoidance. In addition, we consider two mechanisms by which informative heterography might be selected for: differentiation, in which new spellings are created to differentiate meaning (e.g., ⟨lite⟩ vs. ⟨light⟩), and conservation, in which heterography arises as a byproduct of sound change (e.g., ⟨meat⟩ vs. ⟨meet⟩). Under pressure from learning alone, orthographic systems become transparent, but when combined with communicative pressure, they tend to favor some additional informativeness. Nevertheless, our findings also suggest that, in the long term, simpler, transparent spellings may be preferred in the absence of top-down explicit teaching.

From decomposition to distributed theories of morphological processing in reading

The morphological structure of complex words impacts how they are processed during visual word recognition. This impact varies over the course of reading acquisition and for different languages and writing systems. Many theories of morphological processing rely on a decomposition mechanism, in which words are decomposed into explicit representations of their constituent morphemes. In distributed accounts, in contrast, morphological sensitivity arises from the tuning of finer-grained representations to useful statistical regularities in the form-to-meaning mapping, without the need for explicit morpheme representations. In this theoretically guided review, we summarize research into the mechanisms of morphological processing, and discuss findings within the context of decomposition and distributed accounts. Although many findings fit within a decomposition model of morphological processing, we suggest that the full range of results is more naturally explained by a distributed approach, and discuss additional benefits of adopting this perspective.

Is there such a thing as a 'good statistical learner'?

A growing body of research investigates individual differences in the learning of statistical structure, tying them to variability in cognitive (dis)abilities. This approach views statistical learning (SL) as a general individual ability that underlies performance across a range of cognitive domains. But is there a general SL capacity that can sort individuals from 'bad' to 'good' statistical learners? Explicating the suppositions underlying this approach, we suggest that current evidence supporting it is meager. We outline an alternative perspective that considers the variability of statistical environments within different cognitive domains. Once we focus on learning that is tuned to the statistics of real-world sensory inputs, an alternative view of SL computations emerges with a radically different outlook for SL research.

Are people consistent when reading nonwords aloud on different occasions?

Tests of nonword reading have been instrumental in adjudicating between theories of reading and in assessing individuals' reading skill in educational and clinical practice. It is generally assumed that the way in which readers pronounce nonwords reflects their long-term knowledge of spelling-sound correspondences that exist in the writing system. The present study found considerable variability in how the same adults read the same 50 nonwords across five sessions. This variability was not all random: Nonwords that consisted of graphemes that had multiple possible pronunciations in English elicited more intraparticipant variation. Furthermore, over time, shifts in participants' responses occurred such that some pronunciations became used more frequently, while others were pruned. We discuss possible mechanisms by which session-to-session variability arises and implications that our findings have for interpreting snapshot-based studies of nonword reading. We argue that it is essential to understand mechanisms underpinning this session-to-session variability in order to interpret differences across individuals in how they read nonwords aloud on a single occasion.

The Dramatic Impact of Explicit Instruction on Learning to Read in a New Writing System

There is profound and long-standing debate over the role of explicit instruction in reading acquisition. In this research, we investigated the impact of teaching regularities in the writing system explicitly rather than relying on learners to discover these regularities through text experience alone. Over 10 days, 48 adults learned to read novel words printed in two artificial writing systems. One group learned spelling-to-sound and spelling-to-meaning regularities solely through experience with the novel words, whereas the other group received a brief session of explicit instruction on these regularities before training commenced. Results showed that virtually all participants who received instruction performed at ceiling on tests that probed generalization of underlying regularities. In contrast, despite up to 18 hr of training on the novel words, less than 25% of discovery learners performed on par with those who received instruction. These findings illustrate the dramatic impact of teaching method on outcomes during reading acquisition.

Finding the man amongst many: A developmental perspective on mechanisms of morphological decomposition

Skilled reading is characterized by rapid recognition of morphologically complex words. Evidence suggests that adult readers segment complex words into their constituent morphemes during visual word recognition, and that this extends to items that have only a surface morphological structure (e.g., corner), a process termed 'morpho-orthographic segmentation'. It is not yet known how and when this mechanism is established over the course of reading development, although data from English-speaking children suggest that it may be a relatively late-acquired milestone. The purpose of this study was to examine for the first time the mechanisms driving morphological processing across late childhood and adolescence. A cross-sectional sample of 204 children and adolescents from South-East England, ranging in age from 9 to 18 years (M age = 13.74 years, SD = 2.68; 110 female), completed a visual masked prime lexical decision task using three sets of prime-target pairs: morphological (e.g., teacher - TEACH), pseudomorphological (sharing an apparent morphological relationship in the absence of a semantic relationship, e.g., corner - CORN), and form (sharing an orthographic relationship only, e.g., window - WIND). Linear mixed effects models revealed both morphological and pseudomorphological priming in the absence of form priming, with priming magnitude increasing in line with age, and stronger evidence of morpho-orthographic segmentation emerging in line with word reading efficiency. Our findings reveal advances in the reading system during adolescence which may reflect accumulated exposure to regularities in the writing system, facilitating rapid access to meaning from print.

Individual differences in learning the regularities between orthography, phonology and semantics predict early reading skills

Statistical views of literacy development maintain that proficient reading requires the assimilation of myriad statistical regularities present in the writing system. Indeed, previous studies have tied statistical learning (SL) abilities to reading skills, establishing the existence of a link between the two. However, some issues are currently left unanswered, including questions regarding the underlying bases for these associations as well as the types of statistical regularities actually assimilated by developing readers. Here we present an alternative approach to study the role of SL in literacy development, focusing on individual differences among beginning readers. Instead of using an artificial task to estimate SL abilities, our approach identifies individual differences in children's reliance on statistical regularities as reflected by actual reading behavior. We specifically focus on individuals' reliance on regularities in the mapping between print and speech versus associations between print and meaning in a word naming task. We present data from 399 children, showing that those whose oral naming performance is impacted more by print-speech regularities and less by associations between print and meaning have better reading skills. These findings suggest that a key route by which SL mechanisms impact developing reading abilities is via their role in the assimilation of sub-lexical regularities between printed and spoken language -and more generally, in detecting regularities that are more reliable than others. We discuss the implications of our findings to both SL and reading theories.

Orthographic consistency influences morphological processing in reading aloud: Evidence from a cross-linguistic study

The present study investigated whether morphological processing in reading is influenced by the orthographic consistency of a language or its morphological complexity. Developing readers in Grade 3 and skilled adult readers participated in a reading aloud task in four alphabetic orthographies (English, French, German, Italian), which differ in terms of both orthographic consistency and morphological complexity. English is the least consistent, in terms of its spelling-to-sound relationships, as well as the most morphologically sparse, compared to the other three. Two opposing hypotheses were formulated. If orthographic consistency modulated the use of morphology in reading, readers of English should show more robust morphological processing than readers of the other three languages, because morphological units increase the reliability of spelling-to-sound mappings in the English language. In contrast, if the use of morphology in reading depended on the morphological complexity of a language, readers of French, German, and Italian should process morphological units in printed letter strings more efficiently than readers of English. Both developing and skilled readers of English showed greater morphological processing than readers of the other three languages. These results support the idea that the orthographic consistency of a language, rather than its morphological complexity, influences the extent to which morphology is used during reading. We explain our findings within the remit of extant theories of reading acquisition and outline their theoretical and educational implications.

EPS mid-career prize lecture 2017: Writing systems, reading, and language

Skilled reading reflects an accumulation of experience with written language. Written language is typically viewed as an expression of spoken language, and this perspective has motivated approaches to understanding reading and reading acquisition. However, in this article, I develop the proposal that written language has diverged from spoken language in important ways that maximise the transmission of meaningful information, and that this divergence has been central to the development of rapid, skilled reading. I use English as an example to show that weaknesses in the relationship between spelling and sound can give rise to strong regularities between spelling and meaning that are critical for the rapid analysis of printed words. I conclude by arguing that the nature of the reading system is a reflection of the writing system and that a deep understanding of reading can be obtained only through a deep understanding of written language.