Orthographic processing: A ‘mid-level’ vision of reading: The 44th Sir Frederic Bartlett Lecture

Lateralized displays reveal the perceptual locus of the syllable transposition effect in Korean

Studies of letter transposition effects in alphabetic scripts provide compelling evidence that letter position is encoded flexibly during reading, potentially during an early, perceptual stage of visual word recognition. Recent studies additionally suggest similar flexibility in the spatial encoding of syllabic information in the Korean Hangul script. With the present research, we conducted two experiments to investigate the locus of this syllabic transposition effect. In Experiment 1, lexical decisions for foveal stimulus presentations were less accurate and slower for four-syllable nonwords created by transposing two syllables in a base word as compared to control nonwords, replicating prior evidence for a transposed syllable effect in Korean word recognition. In Experiment 2, the same stimuli were presented to the right and left visual hemifields (i.e., RVF and LVF), which project both unilaterally and contralaterally to each participant's left and right cerebral hemisphere (i.e., LH and RH) respectively, using lateralized stimulus displays. Lexical decisions revealed a syllable transposition effect in the accuracy and latency of lexical decisions for both RVF and LVF presentations. However, response times for correct responses were longer in the LVF, and therefore the RH, as compared to the RVF/LH. As the LVF/RH appears to be selectively sensitive to the visual-perceptual attributes of words, the findings suggest that this syllable transposition effect partly finds its locus within a perceptual stage of processing. We discuss these findings in relation to current models of the spatial encoding of orthographic information during visual word recognition and accounts of visual word recognition in Korean.

New insights into bilingual visual word recognition: State of the art on the role of orthographic markedness, its theoretical implications, and future research directions

In the past decade, research on bilingual visual word recognition has given rise to a new line of study focusing on a sublexical orthographic variable referred to as orthographic markedness, derived from the comparison of the two orthotactic distributions known by a bilingual reader. Orthographic markers have been shown to speed up language decisions but also, to some extent, to modulate language nonselectivity during lexical access (i.e., the degree of co-activation of lexical representations of the two languages). In this review, we (1) describe the results available in the literature about orthographic markedness on language membership detection and lexical access and discuss the locus of these effects, which leads us to (2) present theoretical extensions to the bilingual interactive activation models and discuss their respective adequacy to the data, finally leading us to (3) propose future research directions in the study of orthographic markedness, such as extension to different reading tasks and contexts as well as considering developmental and learning dynamics.

Phonological decoding and morpho-orthographic decomposition: Complementary routes during learning to read

We examined the reliance on phonological decoding and morpho-orthographic decomposition strategies in developing and skilled readers of French. A lexical decision experiment was conducted where the critical stimuli were four types of nonwords, all derived from the same base word, such as the French word visage (face) in the following examples: (a) pseudo-homophone (PsH) nonwords (e.g., visaje), (b) orthographic controls for PsH nonwords (e.g., visape), (c) pseudo-morphemic (PsM) nonwords (e.g., visageable), and (d) orthographic controls for PsM nonwords (e.g., visagealle, where alle is not a suffix in French). Responses to PsH and PsM nonwords and their controls were studied in three groups of school children (Grades 1, 2, and 5) and one group of skilled adult readers. PsH interference effects (i.e., more errors to PsH nonwords than to the corresponding controls) decreased during reading acquisition to become nonsignificant in skilled readers. Interestingly, the opposite pattern was seen in PsM interference effects (also measured in terms of accuracy), which were already significant in Grade 1 and increased during reading development to reach their maximum in skilled readers. These results point toward opposing learning trajectories in the use of phonological and morphological information when learning to silently read for meaning.

Transposition and substitution-letter effects in a flanker task: Evidence from children and adults

Several studies have shown that parafoveal processing is essential in reading development. In this study, we explore the effect of transposing and substituting inner and outer letters in a flanker lexical decision task administered to 78 children and 65 adults. The results show a significant interaction between the Group factor and the Flanker factor, suggesting differences in the effects of flankers for children and adults. In the case of adults, transposed and substituted letters generated benefit of the same magnitude in comparison with the unrelated condition, but of lesser magnitude than the Identity condition. In the case of children, the results show facilitation for the transposed conditions of the same magnitude as the Identity condition. However, the substitution conditions failed to generate any benefit in comparison with the unrelated condition. The results for the adults are in line with the predictions of the open bigram model, whereas the results for the children are explained through a developmental perspective of the dual-route architecture and open bigram framework.

Does rotation eliminate masked priming effects for Japanese kanji words?

A key issue in recent visual word recognition literature is whether text rotation disrupts the early stages of orthographic processing. Previous research found no masked repetition priming effect when primes were rotated ≥90° in alphabetic languages. The present study investigated the impact of text rotation using logographic (two-character Japanese kanji) words. In Experiment 1, we conducted a masked repetition priming lexical decision experiment with upright and 180° rotated primes. The rotated primes produced a significant priming effect, although the effect was smaller than the upright primes. In Experiment 2, we further examined the effectiveness of 180° rotated primes in two different conditions: the whole words were rotated vs. each constituent character was rotated at their own positions. Both prime types produced significant priming effects of similar magnitudes. These findings suggest that orthographic processing is more robust against text rotation in logographic languages than in alphabetic languages.

The English Sublexical Toolkit: Methods for indexing sound-spelling consistency

This work introduces the English Sublexical Toolkit, a suite of tools that utilizes an experience-dependent learning framework of sublexical knowledge to extract regularities from the English lexicon. The Toolkit quantifies the empirical regularity of sublexical units in both the reading and spelling directions (i.e., grapheme-to-phoneme and phoneme-to-grapheme) and at multiple grain sizes (i.e., phoneme/grapheme and onset/rime unit size). It can extract multiple experience-dependent regularity indices for words or pseudowords, including both frequency indices (e.g., grapheme frequency) and conditional probability indices (e.g., grapheme-to-phoneme probability). These tools provide (1) superior estimates of the regularities that better reflect the complexity of the sublexical system relative to previously published indices and (2) completely novel indices of sublexical units such as phonographeme frequency (i.e., combined units of individual phonemes and graphemes that are independent of processing direction). We demonstrate that measures from the toolkit explain significant amounts of variance in empirical data (naming of real words and lexical decision), and either outperform or are comparable to the best available consistency measures. The flexibility of the toolkit is further demonstrated by its ability to readily index the probability of different pseudowords pronunciations, and we report that the measures account for the majority of variance in these empirically observed probabilities. Overall, this work provides a framework and resources that can be flexibly used to identify optimal corpus-based consistency measures that help explain reading/spelling behaviors for real and pseudowords.

A Systematic Review on Visual-Processing Deficits in Neurofibromatosis Type 1: What Possible Impact on Learning to Read?

This systematic review aimed to examine the possible implication of visual-perceptual, visuo-attentional and oculomotor processing in the reading deficits frequently experienced by children with Neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), as previously shown in dyslexia. Using PRISMA methodological guidelines, we examined 49 studies; most of these reported visual-processing deficits in this population, raising the importance of directly studying the visuo-perceptual and visuo-attentional processes and eye-movement control involved in the learning-to-read process in NF1. The discussion provides a reflection for a better understanding of how visual-processing skills interact with reading deficits in NF1, as well as new avenues for their screening and care.

No position-specific interference from prior lists in cued recognition: A challenge for position coding (and other) theories of serial memory

Position-specific intrusions of items from prior lists are rare but important phenomena that distinguish broad classes of theory in serial memory. They are uniquely predicted by position coding theories, which assume items on all lists are associated with the same set of codes representing their positions. Activating a position code activates items associated with it in current and prior lists in proportion to their distance from the activated position. Thus, prior list intrusions are most likely to come from the coded position. Alternative "item dependent" theories based on associations between items and contexts built from items have difficulty accounting for the position specificity of prior list intrusions. We tested the position coding account with a position-cued recognition task designed to produce prior list interference. Cuing a position should activate a position code, which should activate items in nearby positions in the current and prior lists. We presented lures from the prior list to test for position-specific activation in response time and error rate; lures from nearby positions should interfere more. We found no evidence for such interference in 10 experiments, falsifying the position coding prediction. We ran two serial recall experiments with the same materials and found position-specific prior list intrusions. These results challenge all theories of serial memory: Position coding theories can explain the prior list intrusions in serial recall and but not the absence of prior list interference in cued recognition. Item dependent theories can explain the absence of prior list interference in cued recognition but cannot explain the occurrence of prior list intrusions in serial recall.

Letters away from the looking glass: Developmental trajectory of mirrored and rotated letter processing within words

Discrimination of reversible mirrored letters (e.g., d and b) poses a challenge when learning to read as it requires overcoming mirror invariance, an evolutionary-old perceptual tendency of processing mirror images as equivalent. The present study investigated when, in reading development, mirror-image discrimination becomes automatic during visual word recognition. The developmental trajectory of masked priming effects was investigated from 2nd to 6th grade and in adults, by manipulating letter type (nonreversible; reversible) and prime condition (control; identity; mirrored; rotated). Standardized identity priming increased along reading development. Beginning readers showed mirror invariance during reversible and nonreversible letter processing. A mirror cost (slower word recognition in mirrored-letter than identity prime condition) was found by 5th-grade but only for reversible letters. By 6th grade, orthographic processing was no longer captive of mirror invariance. A multiple linear regression showed that letter representations, but not phonological processes or age, were a reliable predictor of the rise of mirror-image discrimination in 2nd-4th-graders. The present results suggest a protracted development of automatic mirror-image discrimination during orthographic processing, contingent upon the quality of abstract letter representations. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: We traced the developmental trajectory of mirrored-letter and rotated-letter priming effects (e.g., ibea and ipea as primes of IDEA) in visual word recognition. Beginning readers (2nd-4th-graders) showed mirror invariance and plane-rotation sensitivity in orthographic processing, thus still being susceptible to the perceptual biases in charge in object recognition. A mirror cost was found in 5th-graders but only for reversible letters; orthographic processing was no longer captive of mirror invariance by 6th-grade. The automation of mirror-image discrimination during orthographic processing depends on the quality of letter representations but not on phonological processes or age.

Flexible letter-position coding in Chinese-English L2 bilinguals: Evidence from eye movements

Theories suggest that efficient recognition of English words depends on flexible letter-position coding, demonstrated by the fact that transposed-letter primes (e.g., JUGDE-judge) facilitate written word recognition more than substituted-letter primes (e.g., JUFBE-judge). The multiple route model predicts that reading experience should drive more flexible letter-position coding as readers transition from decoding words letter-by-letter to recognising words as wholes. This study therefore examined whether letter-position is coded flexibly in second-language English sentence reading for native Chinese speakers, and if this is influenced by English proficiency. Eye movements were measured while 54 adult native Chinese speakers read English sentences including either a real word (e.g., cheaply), a transposed-letter nonword (e.g., "chepaly"), or a substituted-letter nonword (e.g., "chegely"). Flexible letter-position coding was observed in initial and later processing stages-reading times were longer for substituted-letter than transposed-letter nonwords. In addition, reading times were longer in both initial and later processing stages for transposed-letter nonwords than real words, indicating that, despite encoding letter-position flexibly, readers processed letter-position. Although pre-registered frequentist analyses suggested that English proficiency did not predict overall reading times, Bayes Factors indicated that there was evidence for such a relationship. It is therefore likely that this proficiency analysis suffered from low power. Finally, neither frequentist nor Bayes Factor analyses suggested that English proficiency influenced the difference in reading times between different target word types, i.e., the nature of letter-position coding. Overall, these results suggest that highly proficient L2 learners code letter-position flexibly.

One more trip to Barcetona: on the special status of visual similarity effects in city names

Previous research has shown that, unlike misspelled common words, misspelled brand names are sensitive to visual letter similarity effects (e.g., amazom is often recognized as a legitimate brand name, but not amazot). This pattern poses problems for those models that assume that word identification is exclusively based on abstract codes. Here, we investigated the role of visual letter similarity using another type of word often presented in a more homogenous format than common words: city names. We found a visual letter similarity effect for misspelled city names (e.g., Barcetona was often recognized as a word, but not Barcesona) for relatively short durations of the stimuli (200 ms; Experiment 2), but not when the stimuli were presented until response (Experiment 1). Notably, misspelled common words did not show a visual letter similarity effect for brief 200- and 150-ms durations (e.g., votume was not as often recognized as a word than vosume; Experiments 3-4). These findings provide further evidence that the consistency in the format of presentations may shape the representation of words in the mental lexicon, which may be more salient in scenarios where processing resources are limited (e.g., brief exposure presentations).

A Letter is a Letter and its Co-Occurrences: Cracking the Emergence of Position-Invariance Processing

Visual word recognition requires encoding letter identities and positions (orthographic processing). The present study focuses on the emergence of the mechanism responsible for encoding letter order in a word: position invariance. Reading experience leads to developing a flexible mechanism that encodes the information of the position of letters, explaining why jugde and judge are easily confused. Critically, orthographic regularities (e.g., frequent letter co-occurrences) modulate letter position encoding: the pseudoword mohter is extremely similar to mother because, in middle positions, the bigram TH is much more frequent than HT. Here, we tested whether position invariance emerges rapidly after the exposition to orthographic regularities-bigrams-in a novel script. To that end, we designed a study with two phases. In Phase 1, following Chetail (2017; Experiment 1b, Cognition, 163, 103-120), individuals were first exposed to a flow of artificial words for a few minutes, with four bigrams occurring frequently. Afterward, participants judged the strings with trained bigrams as more wordlike (i.e., readers quickly picked up subtle new orthographic regularities) than the strings with untrained bigrams, replicating Chetail (2017). In Phase 2, participants performed a same-different matching task in which they had to decide whether pairs of five-letter strings were the same or not. The critical comparison was between pairs with a transposition of letters in a frequent (trained) versus infrequent (untrained) bigram. Results showed that participants were more prone to make errors with frequent bigrams than with infrequent bigrams with a letter transposition. These findings reveal that position invariance emerges rapidly, after continuous exposure to orthographic regularities.

Misspelled logotypes: the hidden threat to brand identity

Brand names are valuable company assets often accompanied by a unique graphical composition (i.e., as logotypes). Recent research has demonstrated that this uniqueness makes brand names and logotypes susceptible to counterfeiting through misspelling by transposition in tasks that require participants to identify correct spellings. However, our understanding of how brand names are incidentally processed when presented as logotypes is incomplete. To address this gap in knowledge, we conducted a virtual reality experiment to explore the transposed-letter confusability effect on brand name recognition. Participants were immersed in a virtual reality setting and incidentally exposed to logotypes that had correctly spelled brand names or included letter transpositions. Offline analyses revealed that participants were more accurate at recognizing brand names that had been presented with correct spellings than those that had been misspelled. Furthermore, participants exhibited false memories for misspelled logotypes, recalling them as if they had been spelled correctly. Thus, our findings revealed that the incidental processing of misspelled logotypes (e.g., SASMUNG) affects the accuracy of logotype identity recognition, thereby underscoring the challenges faced by individuals when identifying brand names and the elements that make counterfeits so effective.

Examining Letter Detector Tolerance through Offset Letter Halves: Evidence from Lexical Decision

Neurobiological models of reading assume that the specialized detectors at the letter level (e.g., the arrays of detectors for the letter 'n') possess a certain degree of tolerance (e.g., Local Combination Detectors model, Dehaene et al. 2005). In this study, we designed two lexical decision experiments that examined the limits of tolerance of letter detectors by introducing a novel manipulation involving shifting letter halves (e.g., in Experiment 1; in Experiment 2) relative to intact items. This manipulation alters the transition between upper and lower parts of the letters, adding junctions that do not exist in the intact letter forms. We included high- and low-frequency words in the stimulus list to investigate whether letter distortion affects processing beyond the letter level, reasoning that interactive effects would signal top-down lexical feedback. In Experiment 1, which employed a subtle letter shift, we observed a minimal cost of letter distortion that did not interact with word frequency. Experiment 2, employing a larger letter shift, revealed an overall greater reading cost that affected differentially high- and low-frequency words. Overall, these findings offer insights into the limits of resilience in letter detectors to distortion during word recognition and introduce a novel manipulation of letter distortion.

Serial attention to serial memory: The psychological refractory period in forward and backward cued recall

Guided by the conjecture that memory retrieval is attention turned inward, we examined serial attention in serial memory, combining the psychological refractory period (PRP) procedure from attention research with cued recall of two items from brief six-item lists. We report six experiments showing robust PRP effects in cued recall from memory (1-4) and cued report from perceptual displays (5-6), which suggest that memory retrieval requires the same attentional bottleneck as "retrieval" from perception. There were strong direction effects in each memory experiment. Response time (RT) was shorter and accuracy was higher when the cues occurred in the forward direction (left-to-right, top-to-bottom, first-to-last), replicating differences between forward and backward serial recall. Cue positions had strong effects on RT and accuracy in the memory experiments (1-4). The pattern suggested that subjects find cued items in memory by stepping through the list from the beginning or the end, with a preference for starting at the beginning. The perceptual experiments (5-6) showed weak effects of position that were more consistent with direct access. In all experiments, the distance between the cues in the list (lag) had weak effects, suggesting that subjects searched for each cue from the beginning or end of the list more often than they moved through the list from the first cue to the second. Direction, distance, and lag effects on RT and inter-response interval changed with SOA in a manner that suggested they affect bottleneck or pre-bottleneck processes that create and execute a plan for successive retrievals. We conclude that sequential retrieval from memory and sequential attention to perception engage the same computations and we show how computational models of memory can be interpreted as models of attention focused on memory.

Investigating the Role of Response Codes in Masked Priming Lexical Decision Tasks: The Case of Repeated Presentations

The masked priming technique is considered a gold standard among experimental psychologists who specialize in the field of visual word recognition. Typically, this method entails a comparison between two or more critical conditions (e.g., the target word MOUSE being preceded by either the identity prime mouse or the unrelated prime fence). It is noteworthy that, unlike other masked priming tasks, prior experiments examining the properties of unrelated primes (e.g., their frequency as words [high or low] or their legality as nonwords [orthographically legal or illegal]) do not have an impact on the processing of the target item. However, two lexical decision studies reported faster responses to target words when the unrelated prime is a word rather than a nonword (i.e., a response congruency effect). One possible explanation for this discrepancy is a difference in methodology, as these two studies are the only ones to have used repeated presentation of stimuli, which could lead to the creation of an episodic memory trace that amplifies response congruency effects. To examine this hypothesis, we used a set of materials that did not show any congruency effect in a previous experiment with unique presentations, except that here we included repeated presentations. Results showed a response congruency effect, with participants responding faster to word targets when they were preceded by an unrelated word prime as opposed to an unrelated nonword prime. These findings suggest that the activation of response codes in masked priming is contingent upon the nature of cognitive resources required for processing the target stimuli.

Do Diacritics Entail an Early Processing Cost in the Absence of Abstract Representations? Evidence from Masked Priming in English

Using the masked priming technique, word recognition experiments in various languages have shown slower response times for a target word like NEVEU (nephew, in French) when preceded by a diacritical prime like néveu than by the identity prime neveu. The most common account of this effect is linguistic: diacritical and non-diacritical vowels (e.g., é and e) activate different letter representations (e.g., compare neveu /nə.vø/ vs. néveu /ne.vø/). However, another explanation is that the reduced effectiveness of the diacritical primes is merely due to the perceptual salience of accent marks in the first moments of word processing. Here, we designed a masked priming experiment that tested this perceptual salience account by comparing the effectiveness of diacritical versus non-diacritical primes in a language where diacritics have no linguistic value, namely, English (e.g., nórth-NORTH vs. north-NORTH). We found a small but reliable cost due to the diacritical primes, thus revealing that perceptual salience reduced the effectiveness of the primes. However, the effect sizes were substantially smaller than in the experiments in languages with diacritical marks, thus suggesting that the néveu-NEVEU versus neveu-NEVEU difference relies on both linguistic and perceptual sources.

Decision times in orthographic processing: a cross-linguistic study

Reading comparisons across transparent and opaque orthographies indicate critical differences that may reveal the mechanisms involved in orthographic decoding across orthographies. Here, we address the role of criterion and speed of processing in accounting for performance differences across languages. We used binary tasks involving orthographic (words-pseudowords), and non-orthographic materials (female-male faces), and analyzed results based on Ratcliff's Diffusion model. In the first study, 29 English and 28 Italian university students were given a lexical decision test. English observers made more errors than Italian observers while showing generally similar reaction times. In terms of the diffusion model, the two groups differed in the decision criterion: English observers used a lower criterion. There was no overall cross-linguistic difference in processing speed, but English observers showed lower values for words (and a smaller lexicality effect) than Italians. In the second study, participants were given a face gender judgment test. Female faces were identified slower than the male ones with no language group differences. In terms of the diffusion model, there was no difference between groups in drift rate and boundary separation. Overall, the new main finding concerns a difference in decision criterion limited to the orthographic task: English individuals showed a more lenient criterion in judging the lexicality of the items, a tendency that may explain why, despite lower accuracy, they were not slower. It is concluded that binary tasks (and the Diffusion model) can reveal cross-linguistic differences in orthographic processing which would otherwise be difficult to detect in standard single-word reading tasks.

Sequential versus simultaneous presentation of memoranda in verbal working memory: (How) does it matter?

To-be-memorized information in verbal working memory (WM) can be presented sequentially, like in oral language, and simultaneously, like in written language. Few studies have addressed the importance and implications for verbal WM processing of these two presentation modes. While sequential presentation may favor discrete, temporal encoding processes, simultaneous presentation may favor spatial encoding processes. We compared immediate serial recall tasks for sequential versus simultaneous word list presentation with a specific focus on serial position curves of recall performance, transposition gradients, and the nature of serial order errors. First, we observed higher recall performance in the simultaneous compared to the sequential conditions, with a particularly large effect at end-of-list items. Moreover, results showed more transposition errors between non-adjacent items for the sequential condition, as well as more omission errors especially for start-of-list items. This observation can be explained in terms of differences in refreshing opportunities for start-of-list items during encoding between conditions. This study shows that the presentation mode of sequential material can have a significant impact on verbal WM performance, with an advantage for simultaneous encoding of sequence information.

The sequence effect: Character position processing in Chinese words

Numerous studies indicate that letter position processing is important for word recognition; also, the position processing of external letters (especially the initial letter) is better than that of inner letters in the Roman script. Similarly, the position processing of characters is critical in Chinese word recognition. However, the position processing pattern of characters within Chinese words is still understudied. Therefore, using a single-presentation lexical decision task with 79 university students in China, we conducted two experiments with three- and four-character words to explore this issue. The results revealed clear character position processing with transposed pseudowords. Crucially, we identified a sequence effect in Chinese character position processing within words, directly supporting the hypothesis that character-based processing occurs with Chinese words. We also discussed other possibilities in Chinese character position processing.

Reading about a RELO-VUTION

Pseudowords created by transposing two letters of words (e.g., MOHTER; CHOLOCATE) are highly confusable with their base word; this is known as the transposed-letter similarity effect. In this work, we examined whether transposed-letter effects occur when words span more than one line (e.g., CHOLO- in one line and CATE in another line; note that the transposed letters L and C are in different lines). While this type of presentation is not the canonical format for reading in alphabetic languages, it is widely used in advertising, billboards, and street signs. Transposed-letter pseudowords and their replacement-letter controls were written in the standard one-line format versus a two-line format (Experiments 1-2) or a syllable-per-line format (Experiment 3). While results showed some decrease in the transposed-letter effect in the two-line and syllabic formats, the transposed-letter effect was still substantial in the accuracy of responses. These findings demonstrate that even when the letters being transposed are relatively far apart in space, the transposed-letter effect is still robust. Thus, a major component of letter position coding occurs at an abstract level.

Raeding with the fingres: Towards a universal model of letter position coding

Letter position coding in word recognition has been widely investigated in the visual modality (e.g., labotarory is confusable with laboratory), but not as much in the tactile modality using braille, leading to an incomplete understanding of whether this process is modality-dependent. Unlike sighted readers, braille readers do not show a transposed-letter similarity effect with nonadjacent transpositions (e.g., labotarory = labodanory; Perea et al., 2012). While this latter finding was taken to suggest that the flexibility in letter position coding was due to visual factors (e.g., perceptual uncertainty in the location of visual objects (letters)), it is necessary to test whether transposed-letter effects occur with adjacent letters to reach firm conclusions. Indeed, in the auditory modality (i.e., another serial modality), a transposed-phoneme effect occurs for adjacent but not for nonadjacent transpositions. In a lexical decision task, we examined whether pseudowords created by transposing two adjacent letters of a word (e.g., laboartory) are more confusable with their base word (laboratory) than pseudowords created by replacing those letters (laboestory) in braille. Results showed that transposed-letter pseudowords produced more errors and slower responses than the orthographic controls. Thus, these findings suggest that the mechanism of serial order, while universal, can be shaped by the sensory modality at play.

Mirror Generalization During Early Word Recognition

The "recycling hypothesis" posits that the word recognition system is built upon minimal modifications to the neural architecture used in object recognition. In two masked priming lexical decision studies, we examined whether "mirror generalization," a phenomenon in object recognition, occurs in word recognition. In Study 1, we found that mirrored repetition and mirrored transposed letter primes elicited significant and equivalent priming effects for mirrored targets. In Study 2, we found that mirrored and non-mirrored repetition primes both significantly facilitated processing of mirrored targets, but the priming effect was much larger for non-mirrored primes. In both studies, we also found evidence of gender differences as females showed faster response times and a larger mirror priming effect compared to males. Taken together, we conclude that mirror generalization occurs in the early orthographic stage of word recognition, but not in the later stage of lexical access, and there is a gender difference when reading mirror words.

EXPRESS: Orthographic and feature-level contributions to letter identification

Word recognition is facilitated by primes containing visually similar letters (dentjst-dentist, Marcet & Perea, 2017), suggesting that letter identities are encoded with initial uncertainty. Orthographic knowledge also guides letter identification, as readers are more accurate at identifying letters in words compared to pseudowords (Reicher, 1969; Wheeler, 1970). We investigated how higher-level orthographic knowledge and low-level visual feature analysis operate in combination during letter identification. We conducted a Reicher-Wheeler task to compare readers' ability to discriminate between visually similar and dissimilar letters across different orthographic contexts (words, pseudowords, and consonant strings). Orthographic context and visual similarity had independent effects on letter identification, and there was no interaction between these factors. The magnitude of these effects indicated that higher-level orthographic information plays a greater role than lower-level visual feature information in letter identification. We propose that readers use orthographic knowledge to refine potential letter candidates while visual feature information is accumulated. This combination of higher-level knowledge and low-level feature analysis may be essential in permitting the flexibility required to identify visual variations of the same letter (e.g. N-n) whilst maintaining enough precision to tell visually similar letters apart (e.g. n-h). These results provide new insights on the integration of visual and linguistic information and highlight the need for greater integration between models of reading and visual processing. This study was pre-registered on the Open Science Framework. Pre-registration, stimuli, instructions, trial-level data, and analysis scripts are openly available (https://osf.io/p4q9u/).

Searching beyond the looking glass with sandwich priming

Duñabeitia et al. (NeuroImage 54(4), 3004-3009, 2011) demonstrated that mirror letters induce the same electrophysiological response as canonical letters during the orthographic stage of visual word recognition. However, behavioral evidence in support of such an effect has remained scarce. We hypothesize that the poor reliability of the behavioral data could be due to the lack of sensitivity of the paradigms used in the literature. In Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, we compared conventional and sandwich-masked priming paradigms. Results showed that mirror primes (mirror) produced a significant priming effect on high-frequency words in the case of sandwich priming only. In Experiment 3, we used sandwich priming with a new material set to address a number of concerns regarding prime-target visual overlap. We obtained a graded facilitatory mirror-letter priming effect that acted additively with lexical frequency, thus supporting the idea that it originates in the fast automatic orthographic stage. Given that the graded priming effect provides little support for the idea of the complete preservation of mirror invariance for non-reversal letters, complementary explanations are explored.

Positional cueing, string location variability, and letter-in-string identification

In three experiments we measured accuracy in identifying a single letter among a string of five briefly presented consonants followed by a post-mask. The position of the to-be-identified letter was either indicated by an ordinal cue (e.g., position 2) or an underscore cue (e.g., #####). In Experiment 1 the ordinal cue was presented prior to onset of the letter string, and the underscore cue presented at string offset. In Experiments 2 and 3, both the ordinal and the underscore cues were pre-cues. In all experiments, letter strings could either appear centered on fixation or shifted randomly to the left or to the right. Participants were tested in separate blocks of trials for each of the four conditions generated by the combination of cue-type and string-location variability. In Experiment 1, letter identification accuracy was higher with ordinal cues and with fixed string locations, and ordinal cueing was more affected by string location variability. In Experiments 2 and 3, letter identification accuracy was higher with underscore pre-cues. We conclude that under conditions of brief stimulus durations (100 ms) and backward masking, letter-in-string identification accuracy is determined by read-out from location-specific letter detectors, independently of the type of cueing. Differences in the effectiveness of different types of cue are determined by differences in the ease of isolating a given gaze-centered location, and by differences in the ease with which attention can be directed to that location.

Are brand names special words? Letter visual-similarity affects the identification of brand names, but not common words

Brand names are often considered a special type of words of special relevance to examine the role of visual codes during reading: unlike common words, brand names are typically presented with the same letter‐case configuration (e.g., IKEA, adidas). Recently, Pathak et al. (European Journal of Marketing, 2019, 53, 2109) found an effect of visual similarity for misspelled brand names when the participants had to decide whether the brand name was spelled correctly or not (e.g., tacebook [baseword: facebook] was responded more slowly and less accurately than xacebook). This finding is at odds with both orthographically based visual‐word recognition models and prior experiments using misspelled common words (e.g., viotin [baseword: violin] is identified as fast as viocin). To solve this puzzle, we designed two experiments in which the participants had to decide whether the presented item was written correctly. In Experiment 1, following a procedure similar to Pathak et al. (European Journal of Marketing, 2019, 53, 2109), we examined the effect of visual similarity on misspelled brand names with/without graphical information (e.g., anazon vs. atazon [baseword: amazon]). Experiment 2 was parallel to Experiment 1, but we focused on misspelled common words (e.g., anarillo vs. atarillo; baseword: amarillo [yellow in Spanish]). Results showed a sizeable effect of visual similarity on misspelled brand names – regardless of their graphical information, but not on misspelled common words. These findings suggest that visual codes play a greater role when identifying brand names than common words. We examined how models of visual‐word recognition can account for this dissociation.

Evaluation of the Computer-Based Orthographic Processing Assessment: An Application of Cognitive Diagnostic Modeling

The Computer-based Orthographic Processing Assessment (COPA) is a newly developed assessment to measure orthographic processing skills, including rapid perception, access, differentiation, correction, and arrangement. In this study, cognitive diagnostic models were used to test if the dimensionality of the COPA conforms to theoretical expectation, evaluate individual items’ quality, and examine the validity and the learning sequence of each skill. Results showed that the COPA captures five distinctive operating attributes, but some items could be revised to increase their item quality. Correlations with external variables confirmed that performances on the COPA are more strongly related to literacy outcomes than to oral language outcomes but that the COPA also demonstrates discriminant validity relative to even proximal measures of word reading and spelling. The mastery probabilities and best-fitting hierarchical model indicate that four of the five attributes follow a learning progression that is consistent with information processing theory and that was assumed by developers of the COPA.

The letter position coding mechanism of second language words during sentence reading: Evidence from eye movements

We conducted three eye movement experiments to investigate the mechanism for coding letter positions in a person's second language during sentence reading; we also examined the role of morphology in this process with a more rigorous manipulation. Given that readers obtain information not only from currently fixated words (i.e., the foveal area) but also from upcoming words (i.e., the parafoveal area) to guide their reading, we examined both when the targets were fixated (Exp. 1) and when the targets were seen parafoveally (Exps. 2 and 3). First, we found the classic transposed letter (TL) effect in Exp. 1, but not in Exp. 2 or 3. This implies that flexible letter position coding exists during sentence reading. However, this was limited to words located in the foveal area, suggesting that L2 readers whose L2 proficiency is not as high as skilled native readers are not able to extract and utilise the parafoveal letter identity and position information of a word, whether the word length is long (Exp. 2) or short (Exp. 3). Second, we found morphological information to influence the magnitude of the TL effect in Exp. 1. These results provide new eye movement evidence for the flexibility of L2 letter position coding during sentence reading, as well as the interactions between the different internal representations of words in this process. Future L2 reading frameworks should integrate word recognition and eye movement control models.

Orthographic relatedness and transposed-word effects in the grammatical decision task

In two on-line experiments (N = 386) we asked participants to make speeded grammatical decisions to a mixture of syntactically correct sentences and ungrammatical sequences of words. In Experiment 1, the ungrammatical sequences were formed by transposing two inner words in a correct sentence (e.g., the brave daunt the wind / the daunt brave the wind), and we manipulated the orthographic relatedness of the two transposed words (e.g., the brave brace the wind / the brace brave the wind). We found inhibitory effects of orthographic relatedness in decisions to both the correct sentences and the ungrammatical transposed-word sequences. In Experiment 2, we further investigated the impact of orthographic relatedness on transposed-word effects by including control ungrammatical sequences that were matched to the transposed-word sequences. We replicated the inhibitory effects of orthographic relatedness on both grammatical and ungrammatical decisions and found that transposed-word effects were not influenced by this factor. We conclude that orthographic relatedness across adjacent words impacts on processes involved in parallel word identification for sentence comprehension, but not on the association of word identities to positions in a sequence.

Hypothesis testing, attention, and 'Same'-'Different' judgments

Logic and common sense say that judging two stimuli as "same" is the converse of judging them as "different". Empirically, however, 'Same'-'Different' judgment data are anomalous in two major ways. The fast-'Same' effect violates the expectation that 'Same' reaction time (RT) should be predictable by extrapolating from 'Different' RT. The criterion effect violates the expectation that RTs measured when sameness is defined by a conjunction of matching attributes should predict RTs measured when sameness is defined by a disjunction of matching attributes. The two criteria are symmetrical, yet empirically they differ greatly, disjunctive judgments being by far the slower of the two. This study sought the sources of these two effects. With the aid of a cue, a selective-comparison method deconfounded the contributions of stimulus encoding and comparisons to the two effects. The results were paradoxical. Each additional irrelevant (uncued) letter in a random string incremented RT for conjunctive judgments as much as an additional relevant letter did. Yet irrelevant letters were not compared and relevant letters had to be compared. These results appeared again in a second experiment that used words as stimuli. Contrary to intuition, a distinct comparison mechanism-the heart of relative judgment models-is not necessary in judgments of sameness and difference. It is shown here that encoding can carry out the comparison function without the operation of a separate comparison mechanism. Attention mediates the process by selecting from the set of stimulus alternatives, thereby partitioning the set into the 'Same' and 'Different' subsets. The fast-'Same' and criterion effects result from a structural limitation on what attention can select at any one time. With attention mediating the task, 'Same'-'Different' judgments become, in effect, the outcome of a testing of a hypothesis, bridging the distinction between absolute stimulus identification and relative judgments.

From Hand to Eye With the Devil In-Between: Which Cognitive Mechanisms Underpin the Benefit From Handwriting Training When Learning Visual Graphs?

Cognitive science has recently shown a renewed interest on the benefit from training in handwriting (HW) when learning visual graphs, given that this learning experience improves more subsequent visual graph recognition than other forms of training. However, the underlying cognitive mechanism of this HW benefit has been elusive. Building on the 50 years of research on this topic, the present work outlines a theoretical approach to study this mechanism, specifying testable hypotheses that will allow distinguishing between confronting perspectives, i.e., symbolic accounts that hold that perceptual learning and visual analysis underpin the benefit from HW training vs. embodied sensorimotor accounts that argue for motoric representations as inner part of orthographic representations acquired via HW training. From the evidence critically revisited, we concluded that symbolic accounts are parsimonious and could better explain the benefit from HW training when learning visual graphs. The future challenge will be to put at test the detailed predictions presented here, so that the devil has no longer room in this equation.

Do both WRAP and TRAP inhibit the recognition of the French word DRAP? Impact of orthographic markedness on cross-language orthographic priming

We investigated lexical and sub-lexical orthographic coding in bilingual visual word recognition by examining interactions between orthographic neighbourhood and markedness. In three experiments, French/English bilinguals performed a masked lexical decision task in French (L1) in which orthographically related prime words could be either marked or unmarked English (L2) words, compared to unrelated primes (e.g., wrap, trap, gift-DRAP, meaning sheet). The results yielded an overall inhibition priming effect, which was unexpectedly more robust in the marked condition than in the unmarked one. This result highlights the need to integrate both lexical competition and orthographic markedness in bilingual models such as BIA/+ and determine how the latter may modulate lexical processing in bilinguals.

The contribution of semantics to the sentence superiority effect

When a sequence of written words is presented briefly and participants are asked to report the identity of one of the words, identification accuracy is higher when the words form a correct sentence. Here we examined the extent to which this sentence superiority effect can be modulated by semantic content. The central hypothesis guiding this study is that the sentence superiority effect is primarily a syntactic effect. We therefore predicted little or no modulation of the effect by semantics. The influence of semantic content was measured by comparing the sentence superiority effect obtained with semantically regular sentences (e.g., son amie danse bien [her friend dances well]) and semantically anomalous but syntactically correct sentences (e.g., votre sac boit gros [your bag drinks big]), with effects being measured against ungrammatical scrambled versions of the same words in both cases. We found sentence superiority effects with both types of sentences, and a significant interaction, such that the effects were greater with semantically regular sentences compared with semantically anomalous sentences. We conclude that sentence-level semantic information can constrain word identities under parallel word processing, albeit with less impact than that exerted by syntax.

Which Factors Modulate Letter Position Coding in Pre-literate Children?

One of the central landmarks of learning to read is the emergence of orthographic processing (i.e., the encoding of letter identity and letter order): it constitutes the necessary link between the low-level stages of visual processing and the higher-level processing of words. Regarding the processing of letter position, many experiments have shown worse performance in various tasks for the transposed-letter pair judge-JUDGE than for the orthographic control jupte-JUDGE. Importantly, 4-y.o. pre-literate children also show letter transposition effects in a same-different task: TZ-ZT is more error-prone than TZ-PH. Here, we examined whether this effect with pre-literate children is related to the cognitive and linguistic skills required to learn to read. Specifically, we examined the relation of the transposed-letter in a same-different task with the scores of these children in phonological, alphabetic and metalinguistic awareness, linguistic skills, and basic cognitive processes. To that end, we used a standardized battery to assess the abilities related with early reading acquisition. Results showed that the size of the transposed-letter effect in pre-literate children was strongly associated with the sub-test on basic cognitive processes (i.e., memory and perception) but not with the other sub-tests. Importantly, identifying children who may need a pre-literacy intervention is crucial to minimize eventual reading difficulties. We discuss how this marker can be used as a tool to anticipate reading difficulties in beginning readers.

The time course of processing handwritten words: An ERP investigation

Behavioral studies have shown that the legibility of handwritten script hinders visual word recognition. Furthermore, when compared with printed words, lexical effects (e.g., word-frequency effect) are magnified for less intelligible (difficult) handwriting (Barnhart and Goldinger, 2010; Perea et al., 2016). This boost has been interpreted in terms of greater influence of top-down mechanisms during visual word recognition. In the present experiment, we registered the participants' ERPs to uncover top-down processing effects on early perceptual encoding. Participants' behavioral and EEG responses were recorded to high- and low-frequency words that varied in script's legibility (printed, easy handwritten, difficult handwritten) in a lexical decision experiment. Behavioral results replicated previous findings: word-frequency effects were larger in difficult handwriting than in easy handwritten or printed conditions. Critically, the ERP data showed an early effect of word-frequency in the N170 that was restricted to the difficult-to-read handwritten condition. These results are interpreted in terms of increased attentional deployment when the bottom-up signal is weak (difficult handwritten stimuli). This attentional boost would enhance top-down effects (e.g., lexical effects) in the early stages of visual word processing.

The impact of capitalized German words on lexical access

Leading models of visual word recognition assume that the process of word identification is driven by abstract, case-invariant units (e.g., table and TABLE activate the same abstract representation). But do these models need to be modified to meet nuances of orthography as in German, where the first letter of common nouns is capitalized (e.g., Buch [book] and Hund [dog], but blau [blue])? To examine the role of initial capitalization of German words in lexical access, we chose a semantic categorization task ("is the word an animal name?"). In Experiment 1, we compared German words in all-lowercase vs. initial capitalization (hund, buch, blau vs. Hund, Buch, Blau). Results showed faster responses for animal nouns with initial capitalization (Hund < hund) and faster responses for lowercase non-nouns (blau < Blau). Surprisingly, we found faster responses for lowercase non-animal nouns (buch < Buch). As the latter difference could derive from task demands (i.e., buch does not follow German orthographic rules and requires a "no" response), we replaced the all-lowercase format with an orthographically legal all-uppercase format in Experiment 2. Results showed an advantage for all nouns with initial capitalization (Hund < HUND and Buch < BUCH). These findings clearly show that initial capitalization in German words constitutes an essential part of the words' representations and is used during lexical access. Thus, models of visual word recognition, primarily focused on English orthography, should be expanded to the idiosyncrasies of other Latin-based orthographies.

Single Word Reading in the Real World: Effects of Transposed-Letters

We investigated single word reading in a context where isolated word presentation is not unusual reading road signs in a simulated car driving situation. Participants had to indicate if the inscription on the road sign was a real word or not (lexical decision). The critical nonwords were created in two ways: by transposing two letters in a real word (e.g., the word Highway becomes Hihgway) or by substituting the same two letters with different letters (Hifpway). The baseword used to create the critical nonword stimuli were either congruent with a driving context (e.g., highway) or incongruent (e.g., garden). Nonwords created by a letter transposition were harder to reject as such compared with letter substitution nonwords a transposed-letter effect. The effect of baseword congruency was not significant and did not interact with the transposed-letter effect.

On non-adjacent letter repetition and orthographic processing: Lexical decisions to nonwords created by repeating or inserting letters in words

Informal observation suggests that it is harder to notice the spelling mistake in "silencne" than "silencre." This concurs with current evidence that non-adjacent letter repetition in correctly spelled words makes these words harder to recognize. One possible explanation is provided by open-bigram coding. Words containing repeated letters are harder to recognize because they are represented by fewer bigrams than words without repeated letters. Building on this particular explanation for letter-repetition effects in words, we predicted that nonwords in a lexical decision task should also be sensitive to letter repetitions. In particular, we examined two types of nonwords generated from the same baseword: (1) nonwords created by repeating one of the letters in the baseword (e.g., silence => silencne); and (2) nonwords created by inserting a letter that is not present in the baseword (e.g., silencre). According to open-bigram coding, nonwords created by repeating a letter are more similar to their baseword than nonwords created by inserting a letter, and this should make it harder to reject letter repetition nonwords than letter insertion nonwords. We put these predictions to test in one on-line pilot study (n=31), one laboratory experiment (n=36), and one follow-up on-line experiment (n=40) where we manipulated the distance between repetitions (one, two, three, or four letters). Participants found it harder to reject repetition nonwords than insertion nonwords, and this effect diminished with increasing distance.

Predicting future poor readers from pre-reading visual skills: A longitudinal study

Reading is essential for learning, from literature to physics, from paper to screens on e-readers and smart phones. Even if it is well known that learning to read implies good language skills, children also need to develop good oculomotor and visual-perception skills. Thereby, any deficits in visual processing may affect learning. The possible impact of visual deficits is rarely considered, especially with regard to eye movements and visual perception. Hence, these deficits are usually discovered much later or remain undiagnosed. The present study aimed at assessing the usefulness of visual processing related measures in the early detection of reading difficulties. Visual skill differences that are apparent early in kindergarten might provide predictive insights into risk for learning difficulties at school entry. We used a prospective, longitudinal approach where visual processes (assessed with the Developmental Eye Movement (DEM) test) were measured in 51 preschoolers, and the impact of these processes on future reading development was explored one year later, in Grade 1. Results showed that (1) 31% of our sample of preschoolers showed visual processing impairments (without any clinical complaints) and (2) reading accuracy and speed in first graders were significantly correlated with visual skills assessed in kindergarten, thus confirming the significant role of oculomotor and visual-perception processes in the acquisition of reading skills. These suggests the potential for these measures to be used clinically for identifying children at risk for low academic achievement, enabling appropriate targeting of early interventions.

Can rotated words be processed automatically? Evidence from rotated repetition priming

Visual word processing has its own dedicated neural system that, due to the novelty of this activity, is unlikely to have acquired its specialization through natural selection. Understanding the properties of this system could shed light on its recruitment and the background of its disorders. Although recognition of simple visual objects is orientation invariant, this is not necessarily the case for written words. We used a masked repetition priming paradigm to find out whether words retain their readability when viewed in atypical orientations. Subjects had to read out upright target words that were preceded by rotated prime words of the same or different identity. Priming duration was varied in Experiment 1 to assess the temporal emergence of a rotated priming effect. In Experiment 2, the letter order of the prime words was reversed in order to differentiate the processing stage where priming occurs. The orientational pattern of the priming effects seen in our results mostly confirms earlier word recognition models, but also serves a more detailed view about the effects of orientation on word form processing.

Do Grading Gray Stimuli Help to Encode Letter Position?

Numerous experiments in the past decades recurrently showed that a transposed-letter pseudoword (e.g., JUGDE) is much more wordlike than a replacement-letter control (e.g., JUPTE). Critically, there is an ongoing debate as to whether this effect arises at a perceptual level (e.g., perceptual uncertainty at assigning letter position of an array of visual objects) or at an abstract language-specific level (e.g., via a level of "open bigrams" between the letter and word levels). Here, we designed an experiment to test the limits of perceptual accounts of letter position coding. The stimuli in a lexical decision task were presented either with a homogeneous letter intensity or with a graded gray intensity, which indicated an unambiguous letter order. The pseudowords were either transposed-letter pseudowords or replaced-letter pseudowords (e.g., jugde vs. jupte). The results showed much longer response times and substantially more errors in the transposed-letter pseudowords than in the replacement-letter pseudowords, regardless of visual format. These findings favor the idea that language-specific orthographic element factors play an essential role when encoding letter position during word recognition.

Does the cowl make the monk? Detecting counterfeits in brand names versus logos

Companies and products are identified by their brand names, which are typically written with a specific letter style, color, and design (i.e., logos). This graphical information offers a distinctive image that facilitates their recognition. However, the uniqueness of these configuration cues may make brand names more vulnerable to counterfeiting via misspelling. We examined whether the confusability at detecting misspelled brand names is higher when embedded in the full logo than when presented in plain format (Experiment 1), when removing all graphical information of the logo other than typeface (Experiment 2), and when only modifying the typeface (Experiment 3). Participants had to decide whether the presented item was a correctly spelled brand name. The misspelled stimuli were created by either transposing or replacing two internal letters of popular brand names (amazon → amzaon vs. amceon), thus allowing us to have a measure of the transposed-letter confusability effect. Results showed a sizeable transposed-letter confusability effect for all types of brand names, but the effect was greatest for the misspelled full logos. Thus, the distinctiveness of the graphical information in logos has a deleterious side effect: logos are quite vulnerable to counterfeiting via misspelling branding.

An ERP investigation of transposed-word effects in same-different matching

Can several words be read in parallel, and if so, how is information about word order encoded under such circumstances? Here we focused on the bottom-up mechanisms involved in word-order encoding under the hypothesis of parallel word processing. We recorded EEG while participants performed a visual same-different matching task with sequences of five words (reference sequence followed by a target sequence each presented for 400 ms). The reference sequence could be grammatically correct or an ungrammatical scrambling of the same words (e.g., he wants these green apples/green wants these he apples). Target sequences for 'different' responses were created by either transposing two words in the reference (e.g., he these wants green apples/green these wants he apples), or by changing two words (e.g., he talks their green apples/green talks their he apples). Different responses were harder to make in the transposition condition, and this transposed-word effect started to emerge around 250 ms post-target onset. The transposed-word effect was first seen on an early onsetting N400 component, with reduced amplitudes (i.e., less negative ERPs) in the transposed condition relative to a two-word replacement condition. A later transposed-word effect was seen on a more temporally widespread positive-going component. Converging behavioral and EEG results showed no effects of reference grammaticality on 'different' responses nor an interaction with transposed-word effects. Our results point to the noisy, bottom-up association of word identities to spatiotopic locations as one means of encoding word order information, and one key source of transposed-word effects.