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Lecerf MA, Casalis S, Commissaire E. New insights into bilingual visual word recognition: State of the art on the role of orthographic markedness, its theoretical implications, and future research directions. Psychon Bull Rev 2024; 31:1032-1056. [PMID: 38040878 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-023-02347-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 07/18/2023] [Indexed: 12/03/2023]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marie-Ange Lecerf
- Laboratoire de Psychologie des Cognitions (LPC, UR 4440), Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France
| | - Séverine Casalis
- Sciences Cognitives et Sciences Affectives (SCALab, UMR 9193), CNRS, Université de Lille, Lille, France
| | - Eva Commissaire
- Laboratoire de Psychologie des Cognitions (LPC, UR 4440), Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France.
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2
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Wang F, Kaneshiro B, Toomarian EY, Gosavi RS, Hasak LR, Moron S, Nguyen QTH, Norcia AM, McCandliss BD. Progress in elementary school reading linked to growth of cortical responses to familiar letter combinations within visual word forms. Dev Sci 2024; 27:e13435. [PMID: 37465984 DOI: 10.1111/desc.13435] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/27/2023] [Revised: 06/22/2023] [Accepted: 06/26/2023] [Indexed: 07/20/2023]
Abstract
Learning to read depends on the ability to extract precise details of letter combinations, which convey critical information that distinguishes tens of thousands of visual word forms. To support fluent reading skill, one crucial neural developmental process is one's brain sensitivity to statistical constraints inherent in combining letters into visual word forms. To test this idea in early readers, we tracked the impact of two years of schooling on within-subject longitudinal changes in cortical responses to three different properties of words: coarse tuning for print, and fine tuning to either familiar letter combinations within visual word forms or whole word representations. We then examined how each related to growth in reading skill. Three stimulus contrasts-words versus pseudofonts, words versus pseudowords, pseudowords versus nonwords-were presented while high-density EEG Steady-State Visual Evoked Potentials (SSVEPs, n = 31) were recorded. Internalization of abstract visual word form structures over two years of reading experience resulted in a near doubling of SSVEP amplitude, with increasing left lateralization. Longitudinal changes (decreases) in brain responses to such word form structural information were linked to the growth in reading skills, especially in rapid automatic naming of letters. No such changes were observed for whole word representation processing and coarse tuning for print. Collectively, these findings indicate that sensitivity to visual word form structure develops rapidly through exposure to print and is linked to growth in reading skill. RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS: Longitudinal changes in cognitive responses to coarse print tuning, visual word from structure, and whole word representation were examined in early readers. Visual word form structure processing demonstrated striking patterns of growth with nearly doubled in EEG amplitude and increased left lateralization. Longitudinal changes (decreases) in brain responses to visual word form structural information were linked to the growth in rapid automatic naming for letters. No longitudinal changes were observed for whole word representation processing and coarse tuning for print.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fang Wang
- Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA
| | - Blair Kaneshiro
- Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA
| | - Elizabeth Y Toomarian
- Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA
- Synapse School, Menlo Park, California, USA
| | - Radhika S Gosavi
- Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA
- Synapse School, Menlo Park, California, USA
| | - Lindsey R Hasak
- Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA
| | - Suanna Moron
- Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA
| | | | - Anthony M Norcia
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA
- Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, Stanford, California, USA
| | - Bruce D McCandliss
- Graduate School of Education, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA
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3
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Itkonen S, Häikiö T, Vainio S, Lehtonen M. LASTU: A psycholinguistic search tool for Finnish lexical stimuli. Behav Res Methods 2024:10.3758/s13428-024-02347-x. [PMID: 38389029 DOI: 10.3758/s13428-024-02347-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 01/09/2024] [Indexed: 02/24/2024]
Abstract
LASTU is a tool for searching for Finnish language stimulus words for psycholinguistic studies. The tool allows the user to query a number of properties, including forms, lemmas, frequencies, and morphological features. It also includes two new measures for quantifying lemma and form ambiguity. The tool is written in Python and is available for Windows and macOS platforms. It is available at https://osf.io/j8v6b/ . Included with the tool is a database based on a massive corpus of dependency-parsed Finnish language data crawled from the Internet (over 5 billion tokens). While LASTU has been developed for researchers working on the Finnish language, the openly available implementation can also be applied to other languages.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sami Itkonen
- University of Turku, Turku, Finland.
- University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
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4
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Eisenhauer S, Gonzalez Alam TRDJ, Cornelissen PL, Smallwood J, Jefferies E. Individual word representations dissociate from linguistic context along a cortical unimodal to heteromodal gradient. Hum Brain Mapp 2024; 45:e26607. [PMID: 38339897 PMCID: PMC10836172 DOI: 10.1002/hbm.26607] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/24/2023] [Revised: 11/30/2023] [Accepted: 01/15/2024] [Indexed: 02/12/2024] Open
Abstract
Language comprehension involves multiple hierarchical processing stages across time, space, and levels of representation. When processing a word, the sensory input is transformed into increasingly abstract representations that need to be integrated with the linguistic context. Thus, language comprehension involves both input-driven as well as context-dependent processes. While neuroimaging research has traditionally focused on mapping individual brain regions to the distinct underlying processes, recent studies indicate that whole-brain distributed patterns of cortical activation might be highly relevant for cognitive functions, including language. One such pattern, based on resting-state connectivity, is the 'principal cortical gradient', which dissociates sensory from heteromodal brain regions. The present study investigated the extent to which this gradient provides an organizational principle underlying language function, using a multimodal neuroimaging dataset of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) recordings from 102 participants during sentence reading. We found that the brain response to individual representations of a word (word length, orthographic distance, and word frequency), which reflect visual; orthographic; and lexical properties, gradually increases towards the sensory end of the gradient. Although these properties showed opposite effect directions in fMRI and MEG, their association with the sensory end of the gradient was consistent across both neuroimaging modalities. In contrast, MEG revealed that properties reflecting a word's relation to its linguistic context (semantic similarity and position within the sentence) involve the heteromodal end of the gradient to a stronger extent. This dissociation between individual word and contextual properties was stable across earlier and later time windows during word presentation, indicating interactive processing of word representations and linguistic context at opposing ends of the principal gradient. To conclude, our findings indicate that the principal gradient underlies the organization of a range of linguistic representations while supporting a gradual distinction between context-independent and context-dependent representations. Furthermore, the gradient reveals convergent patterns across neuroimaging modalities (similar location along the gradient) in the presence of divergent responses (opposite effect directions).
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Affiliation(s)
- Susanne Eisenhauer
- Department of PsychologyUniversity of YorkYorkUK
- York Neuroimaging Centre, Innovation WayYorkUK
| | | | | | | | - Elizabeth Jefferies
- Department of PsychologyUniversity of YorkYorkUK
- York Neuroimaging Centre, Innovation WayYorkUK
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5
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Pinet S, Zielinski C, Alario FX, Longcamp M. Typing expertise in a large student population. Cogn Res Princ Implic 2022; 7:77. [PMID: 35930064 PMCID: PMC9356123 DOI: 10.1186/s41235-022-00424-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/28/2022] [Accepted: 07/18/2022] [Indexed: 11/20/2022] Open
Abstract
Typing has become a pervasive mode of language production worldwide, with keyboards fully integrated in a large part of many daily activities. The bulk of the literature on typing expertise concerns highly trained professional touch-typists, but contemporary typing skills mostly result from unconstrained sustained practice. We measured the typing performance of a large cohort of 1301 university students through an online platform and followed a preregistered plan to analyse performance distributions, practice factors, and cognitive variables. The results suggest that the standard model with a sharp distinction between novice and expert typists may be inaccurate to account for the performance of the current generation of young typists. More generally, this study shows how the mere frequent use of a new tool can lead to the incidental development of high expertise.
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6
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Collette E, Content A, Schelstraete MA, Chetail F. The extraction of orthographic and phonological structure of printed words in adults with dyslexia. DYSLEXIA (CHICHESTER, ENGLAND) 2022; 28:4-19. [PMID: 34580944 DOI: 10.1002/dys.1700] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/17/2020] [Revised: 05/07/2021] [Accepted: 08/17/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
The current study investigated the extraction of orthographic and phonological structure of written words in adults with dyslexia. In adults without learning difficulties, Chetail and Content showed that orthographic structure, as determined by the number of vowel letter clusters, influences visual word length estimation. The authors also found a phonological effect determined by the number of syllables of words. In the present study, 22 French-speaking students diagnosed with dyslexia in childhood and 22 students without learning disabilities were compared. All participants performed the task of estimating word length. The pattern of results obtained by Chetail and Content was replicated: length estimates were biased by both the number of syllables and the number of vowel letter clusters. The study showed a significant interaction between phonological bias and group. The phonological effect was less important in students with dyslexia, suggesting reduced sensitivity to phonological parsing in reading. In contrast, the orthographic effect did not differ significantly between groups, suggesting that the sensitivity to the orthographic structure of written words is preserved in students with dyslexia despite their low-quality orthographic representations. We conclude that there is no systematic association between sensitivity to the structure of representations and quality of their content.
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Affiliation(s)
- Emilie Collette
- IPSY, Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium
| | - Alain Content
- LCLD, CRCN, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Avenue F. Roosevelt 50 - CP 191, 1050, Brussels, Belgium
| | | | - Fabienne Chetail
- LCLD, CRCN, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Avenue F. Roosevelt 50 - CP 191, 1050, Brussels, Belgium
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Bogaerts L, Siegelman N, Christiansen MH, Frost R. Is there such a thing as a 'good statistical learner'? Trends Cogn Sci 2021; 26:25-37. [PMID: 34810076 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2021.10.012] [Citation(s) in RCA: 12] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/18/2021] [Revised: 10/23/2021] [Accepted: 10/25/2021] [Indexed: 12/31/2022]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Louisa Bogaerts
- Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
| | | | - Morten H Christiansen
- Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT 06511, USA; Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA; Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark
| | - Ram Frost
- Haskins Laboratories, New Haven, CT 06511, USA; The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 91905 Jerusalem, Israel; Basque Center for Cognition, Brain, and Language, 20009 Donostia, Spain
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8
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Letter chunk frequency does not explain morphological masked priming : Affix frequency in masked priming. Psychon Bull Rev 2021; 29:589-599. [PMID: 34741277 PMCID: PMC9038885 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-021-02010-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 09/06/2021] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
Research on visual word identification has extensively investigated the role of morphemes, recurrent letter chunks that convey a fairly regular meaning (e.g., lead-er-ship). Masked priming studies highlighted morpheme identification in complex (e.g., sing-er) and pseudo-complex (corn-er) words, as well as in nonwords (e.g., basket-y). The present study investigated whether such sensitivity to morphemes could be rooted in the visual system sensitivity to statistics of letter (co)occurrence. To this aim, we assessed masked priming as induced by nonword primes obtained by combining a stem (e.g., bulb) with (i) naturally frequent, derivational suffixes (e.g., -ment), (ii) non-morphological, equally frequent word-endings (e.g., -idge), and (iii) non-morphological, infrequent word-endings (e.g., -kle). In two additional tasks, we collected interpretability and word-likeness measures for morphologically-structured nonwords, to assess whether priming is modulated by such factors. Results indicate that masked priming is not affected by either the frequency or the morphological status of word-endings, a pattern that was replicated in a second experiment including also lexical primes. Our findings are in line with models of early visual processing based on automatic stem/word extraction, and rule out letter chunk frequency as a main player in the early stages of visual word identification. Nonword interpretability and word-likeness do not affect this pattern.
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9
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Developmental Dyslexia, Reading Acquisition, and Statistical Learning: A Sceptic's Guide. Brain Sci 2021; 11:brainsci11091143. [PMID: 34573165 PMCID: PMC8472276 DOI: 10.3390/brainsci11091143] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/14/2021] [Revised: 08/19/2021] [Accepted: 08/20/2021] [Indexed: 10/26/2022] Open
Abstract
Many theories have been put forward that propose that developmental dyslexia is caused by low-level neural, cognitive, or perceptual deficits. For example, statistical learning is a cognitive mechanism that allows the learner to detect a probabilistic pattern in a stream of stimuli and to generalise the knowledge of this pattern to similar stimuli. The link between statistical learning and reading ability is indirect, with intermediate skills, such as knowledge of frequently co-occurring letters, likely being causally dependent on statistical learning skills and, in turn, causing individual variation in reading ability. We discuss theoretical issues regarding what a link between statistical learning and reading ability actually means and review the evidence for such a deficit. We then describe and simulate the "noisy chain hypothesis", where each intermediary link between a proposed cause and the end-state of reading ability reduces the correlation coefficient between the low-level deficit and the end-state outcome of reading. We draw the following conclusions: (1) Empirically, there is evidence for a correlation between statistical learning ability and reading ability, but there is no evidence to suggest that this relationship is causal, (2) theoretically, focussing on a complete causal chain between a distal cause and developmental dyslexia, rather than the two endpoints of the distal cause and reading ability only, is necessary for understanding the underlying processes, (3) statistically, the indirect nature of the link between statistical learning and reading ability means that the magnitude of the correlation is diluted by other influencing variables, yielding most studies to date underpowered, and (4) practically, it is unclear what can be gained from invoking the concept of statistical learning in teaching children to read.
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10
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Davis CJ. Vision: What's so special about words? Curr Biol 2021; 31:R284-R287. [PMID: 33756138 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2021.01.052] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Abstract
Readers are sensitive to the statistics of written language. New research suggests that this sensitivity may be driven by the same domain-general mechanisms that enable the visual system to detect statistical regularities in the visual environment.
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Affiliation(s)
- Colin J Davis
- School of Psychological Science, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK.
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11
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Vidal Y, Viviani E, Zoccolan D, Crepaldi D. A general-purpose mechanism of visual feature association in visual word identification and beyond. Curr Biol 2021; 31:1261-1267.e3. [PMID: 33417881 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.12.017] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2020] [Revised: 11/12/2020] [Accepted: 12/14/2020] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
Abstract
As writing systems are a relatively novel invention (slightly over 5 kya),1 they could not have influenced the evolution of our species. Instead, reading might recycle evolutionary older mechanisms that originally supported other tasks2,3 and preceded the emergence of written language. Accordingly, it has been shown that baboons and pigeons can be trained to distinguish words from nonwords based on orthographic regularities in letter co-occurrence.4,5 This suggests that part of what is usually considered reading-specific processing could be performed by domain-general visual mechanisms. Here, we tested this hypothesis in humans: if the reading system relies on domain-general visual mechanisms, some of the effects that are often found with orthographic material should also be observable with non-orthographic visual stimuli. We performed three experiments using the same exact design but with visual stimuli that progressively departed from orthographic material. Subjects were passively familiarized with a set of composite visual items and tested in an oddball paradigm for their ability to detect novel stimuli. Participants showed robust sensitivity to the co-occurrence of features ("bigram" coding) with strings of letter-like symbols but also with made-up 3D objects and sinusoidal gratings. This suggests that the processing mechanisms involved in the visual recognition of novel words also support the recognition of other novel visual objects. These mechanisms would allow the visual system to capture statistical regularities in the visual environment.6-9 We hope that this work will inspire models of reading that, although addressing its unique aspects, place it within the broader context of vision.
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Affiliation(s)
- Yamil Vidal
- Language, Learning and Reading Lab, International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Cognitive Neuroscience Sector, Via Bonomea 265, Trieste 34136, Italy.
| | - Eva Viviani
- Language, Learning and Reading Lab, International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Cognitive Neuroscience Sector, Via Bonomea 265, Trieste 34136, Italy
| | - Davide Zoccolan
- Visual Neuroscience Lab, International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Cognitive Neuroscience Sector, Via Bonomea 265, Trieste 34136, Italy
| | - Davide Crepaldi
- Language, Learning and Reading Lab, International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA), Cognitive Neuroscience Sector, Via Bonomea 265, Trieste 34136, Italy.
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Tossonian M, Ferrand L, Lucas O, Berthon M, Maïonchi-Pino N. Sonority as a Phonological Cue in Early Perception of Written Syllables in French. Front Psychol 2020; 11:558443. [PMID: 33178067 PMCID: PMC7593649 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.558443] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/02/2020] [Accepted: 09/22/2020] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Méghane Tossonian
- CNRS, LAPSCO, Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France
- Unité de Recherche en Neurosciences Cognitives (UNESCOG), Université libre de Bruxelles, Brussels, Belgium
- *Correspondence: Méghane Tossonian,
| | - Ludovic Ferrand
- CNRS, LAPSCO, Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France
| | - Ophélie Lucas
- CNRS, LAPSCO, Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France
| | - Mickaël Berthon
- CNRS, LAPSCO, Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France
| | - Norbert Maïonchi-Pino
- CNRS, LAPSCO, Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France
- Norbert Maïonchi-Pino, ;
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Something old, something new: A review of the literature on sleep-related lexicalization of novel words in adults. Psychon Bull Rev 2020; 28:96-121. [PMID: 32939631 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-020-01809-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 08/30/2020] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Word learning is a crucial aspect of human development that depends on the formation and consolidation of novel memory traces. In this paper, we critically review the behavioural research on sleep-related lexicalization of novel words in healthy young adult speakers. We first describe human memory systems, the processes underlying memory consolidation, then we describe the complementary learning systems account of memory consolidation. We then review behavioural studies focusing on novel word learning and sleep-related lexicalization in monolingual samples, while highlighting their relevance to three main theoretical questions. Finally, we review the few studies that have investigated sleep-related lexicalization in L2 speakers. Overall, while several studies suggest that sleep promotes the gradual transformation of initially labile traces into more stable representations, a growing body of work suggests a rich variety of time courses for novel word lexicalization. Moreover, there is a need for more work on sleep-related lexicalization patterns in varied populations, such as L2 speakers and bilingual speakers, and more work on individual differences, to fully understand the boundary conditions of this phenomenon.
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Duñabeitia JA, Borragán M, de Bruin A, Casaponsa A. Changes in the Sensitivity to Language-Specific Orthographic Patterns With Age. Front Psychol 2020; 11:1691. [PMID: 32760330 PMCID: PMC7371944 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01691] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/31/2020] [Accepted: 06/22/2020] [Indexed: 11/19/2022] Open
Abstract
How do bilingual readers of languages that have similar scripts identify a language switch? Recent behavioral and electroencephalographic results suggest that they rely on orthotactic cues to recognize the language of the words they read in ambiguous contexts. Previous research has shown that marked words with language-specific letter sequences (i.e., letter sequences that are illegal in one of the two languages) are recognized more easily and faster than unmarked words. The aim of this study was to investigate sensitivity to markedness throughout childhood and early adulthood by using a speeded language decision task with words and pseudowords. A large group of Spanish-Basque bilinguals of different ages (children, preteenagers, teenagers and adults) was tested. Results showed a markedness effect in the second language across all age groups that changed with age. However, sensitivity to markedness in the native language was negligible. We conclude that sensitivity to orthotactics does not follow parallel developmental trend in the first and second language.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jon Andoni Duñabeitia
- Centro de Ciencia Cognitiva (C3), Universidad Nebrija, Madrid, Spain.,Department of Language and Culture, The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway
| | - María Borragán
- Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, San Sebastian, Spain
| | - Angela de Bruin
- Department of Psychology, University of York, York, United Kingdom
| | - Aina Casaponsa
- Department of Linguistics and English Language, Lancaster University, Lancaster, United Kingdom
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15
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Maïonchi-Pino N, Carmona A, Tossonian M, Lucas O, Loiseau V, Ferrand L. Universal Restrictions in Reading: What Do French Beginning Readers (Mis)perceive? Front Psychol 2020; 10:2914. [PMID: 32010015 PMCID: PMC6974805 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02914] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2019] [Accepted: 12/10/2019] [Indexed: 12/02/2022] Open
Abstract
Despite the many reports that consider statistical distribution to be vitally important in visual identification tasks in children, some recent studies suggest that children do not always rely on statistical properties to help them locate syllable boundaries. Indeed, sonority – a universal phonological element – might be a reliable source for syllable segmentation. More specifically, are children sensitive to a universal phonological sonority-based markedness continuum within the syllable boundaries for segmentation (e.g., from marked, illegal intervocalic clusters, “jr,” to unmarked, legal intervocalic clusters, “rj”), and how does this sensitivity progress with reading acquisition? To answer these questions, we used the classical illusory conjunction (IC) paradigm. Forty-eight French typically developing children were tested in April (T1), October (T2) and April (T3; 20 children labeled as “good” readers, M chronological age at T1 = 81.5 ± 4.0; 20 children labeled as “poor” readers, M chronological age at T1 = 80.9 ± 3.4). In this short-term longitudinal study, not only we confirmed that syllable segmentation abilities develop with reading experience and level but the Condition × Sonority interaction revealed for the first time that syllable segmentation in reading may be modulated by phonological sonority-based markedness in the absence or quasi-absence of statistical information, in particular within syllable boundaries; this sensitivity is present at an early age and does not depend on reading level and sonority-unrelated features.
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Affiliation(s)
- Norbert Maïonchi-Pino
- Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale et Cognitive (LAPSCO), CNRS UMR 6024, Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France
- *Correspondence: Norbert Maïonchi-Pino, ;
| | - Audrey Carmona
- UFR de Sciences Médicales et Pharmaceutiques – Orthophonie, Université de Franche-Comté, Besançon, France
| | - Méghane Tossonian
- Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale et Cognitive (LAPSCO), CNRS UMR 6024, Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France
| | - Ophélie Lucas
- Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale et Cognitive (LAPSCO), CNRS UMR 6024, Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France
| | - Virginie Loiseau
- Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale et Cognitive (LAPSCO), CNRS UMR 6024, Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France
| | - Ludovic Ferrand
- Laboratoire de Psychologie Sociale et Cognitive (LAPSCO), CNRS UMR 6024, Université Clermont Auvergne, Clermont-Ferrand, France
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Myers L, Downie S, Taylor G, Marrington J, Tehan G, Ireland MJ. Understanding Performance Decrements in a Letter-Canceling Task: Overcoming Habits or Inhibition of Reading. Front Psychol 2018; 9:711. [PMID: 29867676 PMCID: PMC5962787 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00711] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/28/2017] [Accepted: 04/23/2018] [Indexed: 11/29/2022] Open
Abstract
The importance of self-regulation in human behavior is readily apparent and diverse theoretical accounts for explaining self-regulation failures have been proposed. Typically, these accounts are based on a sequential task methodology where an initial task is presented to deplete self-regulatory resources, and carryover effects are then examined on a second outcome task. In the aftermath of high profile replication failures using a popular letter-crossing task as a means of depleting self-regulatory resources and subsequent criticisms of that task, current research into self-control is currently at an impasse. This is largely due to the lack of empirical research that tests explicit assumptions regarding the initial task. One such untested assumption is that for resource depletion to occur, the initial task must first establish an habitual response and then this habitual response must be inhibited, with behavioral inhibition being the causal factor in inducing depletion. This study reports on four experiments exploring performance on a letter-canceling task, where the rules for target identification remained constant but the method of responding differed (Experiment 1) and the coherence of the text was manipulated (Experiments 1–4). Experiment 1 established that habit forming and behavioral inhibition did not produce any performance decrement when the targets were embedded in random letter strings. Experiments 2–4 established that target detection was sensitive to language characteristics and the coherence of the background text, suggesting that participants’ automatic reading processes is a key driver of performance in the letter-e task.
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Affiliation(s)
- Larry Myers
- School of Psychology and Counselling, Institute for Resilient Regions, University of Southern Queensland, Ipswich, QLD, Australia
| | - Steven Downie
- School of Psychology and Counselling, Institute for Resilient Regions, University of Southern Queensland, Ipswich, QLD, Australia
| | - Grant Taylor
- School of Psychology and Counselling, Institute for Resilient Regions, University of Southern Queensland, Ipswich, QLD, Australia
| | - Jessica Marrington
- School of Psychology and Counselling, Institute for Resilient Regions, University of Southern Queensland, Ipswich, QLD, Australia
| | - Gerald Tehan
- School of Psychology and Counselling, Institute for Resilient Regions, University of Southern Queensland, Ipswich, QLD, Australia
| | - Michael J Ireland
- School of Psychology and Counselling, Institute for Resilient Regions, University of Southern Queensland, Ipswich, QLD, Australia
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BACS: The Brussels Artificial Character Sets for studies in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. Behav Res Methods 2017; 49:2093-2112. [DOI: 10.3758/s13428-016-0844-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 17] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
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