A computational account of item-based directed forgetting for nonwords: Incorporating orthographic representations in MINERVA 2

Recent research on item-method directed forgetting demonstrates that forget instructions not only decrease recognition for targets, but also decrease false recognition for foils from the same semantic categories as targets instructed to be forgotten. According to the selective rehearsal account of directed forgetting, this finding suggests that remember instructions may engage elaborative rehearsal of the category-level information of items. In contrast to this explanation, Reid and Jamieson (Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology / Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 76(2), 75-86, 2022) proposed that the differential rates of false recognition may emerge at retrieval when foils from "remember" and "forget" categories are compared to traces in memory. Using MINERVA S, an instance model of memory based on MINERVA 2 that incorporates structured semantic representations, Reid and Jamieson successfully simulated lower false recognition for foils from "forget" categories without assuming rehearsal of category-level information. In this study, we extend the directed forgetting paradigm to categories consisting of orthographically related nonwords. Presumably participants would have difficulty rehearsing category-level information for these items because they would have no pre-experimental knowledge of these categories. To simulate the findings in MINERVA S, we imported structured orthographic representations rather than semantic representations. The model not only predicted differential rates of false recognition for foils from "remember" and "forget" categories, but also predicted higher rates of false recognition overall than what was observed for semantic categories. The empirical data closely matched these predictions. These data suggest that differential rates of false recognition due to remember and forget instructions emerge at retrieval when participants compare recognition probes to traces stored in memory.

General cognitive processing for orthographic discrepancy engages foveal attention during sentence comprehension

Words are processed in the parafovea and fovea in succession during natural reading, but the classic rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) paradigm presents words only in the fovea. Unlike the RSVP paradigm, the RSVP with flanker (RSVP-flanker) paradigm is similar to natural text reading. Previous studies using the RSVP-flanker paradigm have suggested that high-level semantic/syntactic integration engages foveal fixation after parafoveal semantic access. However, it is less clear how general cognitive processing, such as discrepancy monitoring and error correction, unfolds across the parafoveal and foveal visual fields. In the current study, Chinese sentences were presented with the RSVP-flanker paradigm. Critical words were manipulated so that they were expected (EXP), semantically violated (VIO), or orthographically similar (ORT). Because of the nuanced differences between the EXP and ORT conditions, the processing of ORT critical words required more general cognitive processing, such as discrepancy monitoring and error correction. In contrast, the processing of VIO words may require more semantic integration. The ERP results showed more positive foveal late positive component (LPC) in ORT versus VIO. Moreover, there was no parafoveal LPC effect, but a robust foveal LPC effect, in the contrasts of VIO/ORT versus EXP, replicating previous results. Together, the results provide substantial evidence that general cognitive processing for orthographic discrepancy occurs at the foveal perception.

On the role of morphology in early spelling in Hebrew and Arabic

It is well known that learning to spell is a complex and challenging process, especially for young learners, in part because it relies on multiple aspects of linguistic knowledge, such as phonology and morphology. The present longitudinal study investigated the role of morphology in early spelling in two Semitic languages, Hebrew and Arabic, that are structurally similar but differ in the phonological consistency of phoneme to letter mappings ("backward consistency"). Whereas Arabic mappings are mostly one-to-one - allowing children to rely mainly on phonology to spell words correctly, Hebrew has numerous one-to-many phoneme-to-letter mappings that are governed by morphological considerations, thereby precluding a purely phonological spelling strategy. We, therefore, predicted that morphology would make a more substantial contribution to early Hebrew spelling than to Arabic spelling. We tested this prediction in a longitudinal study of two large parallel samples (Arabic, N = 960; Hebrew, N = 680). We assessed general non-verbal ability, morphological awareness (MA), and phonological awareness (PA) in late Kindergarten and spelling in the middle of the first grade with a spelling-to-dictation task. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that after controlling for age, general intelligence, and phonological awareness, morphological awareness contributed a significant additional 6% variance to Hebrew spelling but only 1% to Arabic word spelling. The results are discussed within the framework of the Functional Opacity Hypothesis (Share, 2008), which we extend to spelling.

Orthography influences spoken word production in blocked cyclic naming

Does the way a word is written influence its spoken production? Previous studies suggest that orthography is involved only when the orthographic representation is highly relevant during speaking (e.g., in reading-aloud tasks). To address this issue, we carried out two experiments using the blocked cyclic picture-naming paradigm. In both experiments, participants were asked to name pictures repeatedly in orthographically homogeneous or heterogeneous blocks. In the naming task, the written form was not shown; however, the radical of the first character overlapped between the four pictures in this block type. A facilitative orthographic effect was found when picture names shared part of their written forms, compared with the heterogeneous condition. This facilitative effect was independent of the position of orthographic overlap (i.e., the left, the lower, or the outer part of the character). These findings strongly suggest that orthography can influence speaking even when it is not highly relevant (i.e., during picture naming) and the orthographic effect is less likely to be attributed to strategic preparation.

Correspondence between cognitive and neural representations for phonology, orthography, and semantics in supramarginal compared to angular gyrus

The angular and supramarginal gyri (AG and SMG) together constitute the inferior parietal lobule (IPL) and have been associated with cognitive functions that support reading. How those functions are distributed across the AG and SMG is a matter of debate, the resolution of which is hampered by inconsistencies across stereotactic atlases provided by the major brain image analysis software packages. Schematic results from automated meta-analyses suggest primarily semantic (word meaning) processing in the left AG, with more spatial overlap among phonological (auditory word form), orthographic (visual word form), and semantic processing in the left SMG. To systematically test for correspondence between patterns of neural activation and phonological, orthographic, and semantic representations, we re-analyze a functional magnetic resonance imaging data set of participants reading aloud 465 words. Using representational similarity analysis, we test the hypothesis that within cytoarchitecture-defined subregions of the IPL, phonological representations are primarily associated with the SMG, while semantic representations are primarily associated with the AG. To the extent that orthographic representations can be de-correlated from phonological representations, they will be associated with cortex peripheral to the IPL, such as the intraparietal sulcus. Results largely confirmed these hypotheses, with some nuanced exceptions, which we discuss in terms of neurally inspired computational cognitive models of reading that learn mappings among distributed representations for orthography, phonology, and semantics. De-correlating constituent representations making up complex cognitive processes, such as reading, by careful selection of stimuli, representational formats, and analysis techniques, are promising approaches for bringing additional clarity to brain structure-function relationships.

Sensitivity to orthographic vs. phonological constraints on word recognition: An ERP study with deaf and hearing readers

The role of phonology in word recognition has previously been investigated using a masked lexical decision task and transposed letter (TL) nonwords that were either pronounceable (barve) or unpronounceable (brvae). We used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate these effects in skilled deaf readers, who may be more sensitive to orthotactic than phonotactic constraints, which are conflated in English. Twenty deaf and twenty hearing adults completed a masked lexical decision task while ERPs were recorded. The groups were matched in reading skill and IQ, but deaf readers had poorer phonological ability. Deaf readers were faster and more accurate at rejecting TL nonwords than hearing readers. Neither group exhibited an effect of nonword pronounceability in RTs or accuracy. For both groups, the N250 and N400 components were modulated by lexicality (more negative for nonwords). The N250 was not modulated by nonword pronounceability, but pronounceable nonwords elicited a larger amplitude N400 than unpronounceable nonwords. Because pronounceable nonwords are more word-like, they may incite activation that is unresolved when no lexical entry is found, leading to a larger N400 amplitude. Similar N400 pronounceability effects for deaf and hearing readers, despite differences in phonological sensitivity, suggest these TL effects arise from sensitivity to lexical-level orthotactic constraints. Deaf readers may have an advantage in processing TL nonwords because of enhanced early visual attention and/or tight orthographic-to-semantic connections, bypassing the phonologically mediated route to word recognition.

Orthographic influences on spoken word recognition in bilinguals are dependent on the orthographic depth of the target language not the native language

Reading acquisition leads to the restructuring of representational units in the brain, which influences spoken word processing. This makes spoken word recognition a bimodal process. However, the organization of phonological and orthographic units is dependent on the orthographic depth of the writing system and might play a role in the bimodal processing of spoken words. We investigated this question across two EEG experiments with German native speakers using an auditory priming paradigm and manipulating phonological (e.g., Reh - Tee) and orthographic (e.g., See - Tee) overlap between prime and target. Experiment 1 was conducted in German and revealed inhibitory effects for orthographic overlap, but facilitating effects for phonological overlap. Experiment 2 was conducted in English and revealed facilitating effects for orthographic and phonological overlap. We conclude that orthography influences spoken word processing in both languages, but the nature of the influence is dependent on the orthographic depth of the target language.

Learning to Spell Novel Words: The Relationship Between Orthographic and Semantic Representations During Incidental Learning

The current study investigated whether semantic (meaning) knowledge benefits learning orthography (spelling). Adult readers read 14 novel non-words embedded in sentences with informative or uninformative context. Orthographic and semantic posttests assessed learning. In E1, results indicated that the relationship between context and orthographic accuracy was moderated by spelling frequency. In E2, all novel words had low-frequency spelling bodies. The results did not show a main effect of access to meaning on learning spelling, but they did reveal a strong association between learning spelling and meaning. In E3, participants received fewer exposures to increase the task difficulty. There was no main effect of access to words' meaning on learning spellings, but there were strong associations between orthographic and semantic posttest accuracy. These findings indicate that teaching words' spellings and meanings independently of one another may not be the most beneficial means of learning new words.

Systematicity in language and the fast and slow creation of writing systems: Understanding two types of non-arbitrary relations between orthographic characters and their canonical pronunciation

Words that sound similar tend to have similar meanings, at a distributed, sub-symbolic level (Monaghan, Shillcock, Christiansen, & Kirby, 2014). We extend this paradigm for measuring systematicity to letters and their canonical pronunciations. We confirm that orthographies that were consciously constructed to be systematic (Korean and two shorthand writing systems) yield significant correlations between visual distances between characters and the corresponding phonological distances between canonical pronunciations. We then extend the approach to Arabic, Hebrew, and English and show that letters that look similar tend to sound similar in their canonical pronunciations. We indicate some of the implications for education, and for understanding typical and atypical reading. By using different visual distance metrics we distinguish between symbol-based (Korean, shorthand) and effort-based (Arabic, Hebrew, English) grapho-phonemic systematicity. We reinterpret existing demonstrations of phono-semantic systematicity in terms of cognitive effort.

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.

Phonological parafoveal pre-processing in children reading English sentences

Although previous research has shown that, in English, both adult and teenage readers parafoveally pre-process phonological information during silent reading, to date, no research has been conducted to investigate such processing in children. Here we used the boundary paradigm during silent sentence reading, to ascertain whether typically developing English children, like adults, parafoveally process words phonologically. Participants' eye movements (adults: n = 48; children: n = 48) were recorded as they read sentences which contained, in preview, correctly spelled words (e.g., cheese), pseudohomophones (e.g., cheeze), or spelling controls (e.g., cheene). The orthographic similarity of the target words available in preview was also manipulated to be similar (e.g., cheese/cheeze/cheene) or dissimilar (e.g., queen/kween/treen). The results indicate that orthographic similarity facilitated both adults' and children's pre-processing. Moreover, children parafoveally pre-processed words phonologically very early in processing. The children demonstrated a pseudohomophone advantage from preview that was broadly similar to the effect displayed by the adults, although the orthographic similarity of the pseudohomophone previews was more important for the children than the adults. Overall, these results provide strong evidence for phonological recoding during silent English sentence reading in 8-9-year-old children.

Dynamic functional brain network connectivity during pseudoword processing relates to children's reading skill

Learning to read requires children to link print (orthography) with its corresponding speech sounds (phonology). Yet, most EEG studies of reading development focus on emerging functional specialization (e.g., developing increasingly refined orthographic representations), rather than directly measuring the functional connectivity that links orthography and phonology in real time. In this proof-of-concept study we relate children's reading skill to both orthographic specialization for print (via the N170, also called the N1, event related potential, ERP) and orthographic-phonological integration (via dynamic/event-related EEG phase synchronization - an index of functional brain network connectivity). Typically developing English speaking children (n = 24; 4-14 years) and control adults (n = 20; 18-35 years) viewed pseudowords, consonants and unfamiliar false fonts during a 1-back memory task while 64-channel EEG was recorded. Orthographic specialization (larger N170 for pseudowords vs. false fonts) became more left-lateralized with age, but not with reading skill. Conversely, children's reading skill correlated with functional brain network connectivity during pseudoword processing that requires orthography-phonology linking. This was seen during two periods of simultaneous low frequency synchronization/high frequency desynchronization of posterior-occipital brain network activity. Specifically, in stronger readers, left posterior-occipital activity showed more delta (1-3Hz) synchronization around 300-500 ms (simultaneous with gamma 30-80 Hz desynchronization) and more gamma desynchronization around 600-1000 ms (simultaneous with theta 3-7Hz synchronization) during pseudoword vs. false font processing. These effects were significant even when controlling for age (moderate - large effect sizes). Dynamic functional brain network connectivity measures the brain's real-time sound-print linking. It may offer an under-explored, yet sensitive, index of the neural plasticity associated with reading development.

Task modulates the orthographic and phonological representations in the bilateral ventral Occipitotemporal cortex

As a key area in word reading, the left ventral occipitotemporal cortex is proposed for abstract orthographic processing, and its middle part has even been labeled as the visual word form area. Because the definition of the VWFA largely varies and the reading task differs across studies, the function of the left ventral occipitotemporal cortex in word reading is continuingly debated on whether this region is specific for orthographic processing or be involved in an interactive framework. By using representational similarity analysis (RSA), this study examined information representation in the VWFA at the individual level and the modulatory effect of reading task. Twenty-four subjects were scanned while performing the explicit (i.e., the naming task) and implicit (i.e., the perceptual task) reading tasks. Activation analysis showed that the naming task elicited greater activation in regions related to phonological processing (e.g., the bilateral prefrontal cortex and temporoparietal cortex), while the perceptual task recruited greater activation in visual cortex and default mode network (e.g., the bilateral middle frontal gyrus, angular gyrus, and the right middle temporal gyrus). More importantly, RSA also showed that task modulated information representation in the bilateral anterior occipitotemporal cortex and VWFA. Specifically, ROI-based RSA revealed enhanced orthographic and phonological representations in the bilateral anterior fusiform cortex and VWFA in the naming task relative to the perceptual task. These results suggest that lexical representation in the VWFA is influenced by the demand of phonological processing, which supports the interactive account of the VWFA.

Distinct orthography boosts morphophonological discrimination: Vowel raising in Bengali verb inflections

This study is concerned with how vowel alternation, in combination with and without orthographic reflection of the vowel change, affects lexical access and the discrimination of morphologically related forms. Bengali inflected verb forms provide an ideal test case, since present tense verb forms undergo phonologically conditioned, predictable vowel raising. The mid-to-high alternations, but not the low-to-mid ones, are represented in the orthography. This results in three different cases: items with no change (NoDiff), items with a phonological change not represented in the orthography (PronDiff) and items for which both phonology and orthography change (OrthPronDiff).

To determine whether these three cases differ in terms of lexical access and discrimination, we conducted two experiments. Experiment 1 was a cross-modal lexical decision task with auditory primes (1^stperson and 3^rdperson forms, e.g. [lek^he] or [lik^hi]) and visual targets (verbal noun; e.g. [lek^ha]). Experiment 2 uses eye tracking in a fragment completion task, in which auditory fragments (first syllable of 1^st or 3^rdperson form, e.g. [le-] from [lek^he]) were to be matched to one of two visual targets (full 1^st and 3^rdperson forms, [lek^he] vs. [lik^hi] in Bengali script).

While the lexical decision task, a global measure of lexical access, did not show a difference between the cases, the eye-tracking experiment revealed effects of both phonology and orthography. Discrimination accuracy in the OrthPronDiff condition (vowel alternation represented in the orthography) was high. In the PronDiff condition, where phonologically differing forms are represented by the same graphemes, manual responses were at chance, although eye movements revealed that match and non-match were discriminated. Thus, our results indicate that phonological alternations which are not represented in spelling are difficult to process, whereas having orthographically distinct forms boosts discrimination performance, implying orthographically influenced mental phonological representations.

How are visemes and graphemes integrated with speech sounds during spoken word recognition? ERP evidence for supra-additive responses during audiovisual compared to auditory speech processing

Both visual articulatory gestures and orthography provide information on the phonological content of speech. This EEG study investigated the integration between speech and these two visual inputs. A comparison of skilled readers' brain responses elicited by a spoken word presented alone versus synchronously with a static image of a viseme or a grapheme of the spoken word's onset showed that while neither visual input induced audiovisual integration on N1 acoustic component, both led to a supra-additive integration on P2, with a stronger integration between speech and graphemes on left-anterior electrodes. This pattern persisted in P350 time-window and generalized to all electrodes. The finding suggests a strong impact of spelling knowledge on phonetic processing and lexical access. It also indirectly indicates that the dynamic and predictive value present in natural lip movements but not in static visemes is particularly critical to the contribution of visual articulatory gestures to speech processing.

Spoken words activate native and non-native letter-to-sound mappings: Evidence from eye tracking

Many languages use the same letters to represent different sounds (e.g., the letter P represents /p/ in English but /r/ in Russian). We report two experiments that examine how native language experience impacts the acquisition and processing of words with conflicting letter-to-sound mappings. Experiment 1 revealed that individual differences in nonverbal intelligence predicted word learning and that novel words with conflicting orthography-to-phonology mappings were harder to learn when their spelling was more typical of the native language than less typical (due to increased competition from the native language). Notably, Experiment 2 used eye tracking to reveal, for the first time, that hearing non-native spoken words activates native language orthography and both native and non-native letter-to-sound mappings. These findings evince high interactivity in the language system, illustrate the role of orthography in phonological learning and processing, and demonstrate that experience with written form changes the linguistic mind.

A Survey of Orthographic Information in Machine Translation

Machine translation is one of the applications of natural language processing which has been explored in different languages. Recently researchers started paying attention towards machine translation for resource-poor languages and closely related languages. A widespread and underlying problem for these machine translation systems is the linguistic difference and variation in orthographic conventions which causes many issues to traditional approaches. Two languages written in two different orthographies are not easily comparable but orthographic information can also be used to improve the machine translation system. This article offers a survey of research regarding orthography’s influence on machine translation of under-resourced languages. It introduces under-resourced languages in terms of machine translation and how orthographic information can be utilised to improve machine translation. We describe previous work in this area, discussing what underlying assumptions were made, and showing how orthographic knowledge improves the performance of machine translation of under-resourced languages. We discuss different types of machine translation and demonstrate a recent trend that seeks to link orthographic information with well-established machine translation methods. Considerable attention is given to current efforts using cognate information at different levels of machine translation and the lessons that can be drawn from this. Additionally, multilingual neural machine translation of closely related languages is given a particular focus in this survey. This article ends with a discussion of the way forward in machine translation with orthographic information, focusing on multilingual settings and bilingual lexicon induction.

The Role of Orthography in Lexical Processing of the Phonological Variants in Second Language

There is evidence that orthographic knowledge can influence on-line spoken-word recognition. Interestingly, when graphic and phonetic codes are not congruent due to the application of phonological alternation processes, people report hearing sounds that are matched to graphic (underlying), not phonetic codes (Hallé et al. in J Mem Lang 43:618-639, 2000). It is, however, not known whether the same effect arises in the processing of a non-native language (L2). In the present study, advanced Mandarin learners of Korean as well as native Korean listeners performed a phoneme monitoring task using words undergoing obstruent nasalization in Korean. The results showed that orthographic information dominated the phonetic judgments of the native Korean listeners, while the Mandarin learners' judgments relied more on the phonetic input. These results suggest that even the lexical access of highly experienced L2 learners differs from that of native speakers and that advanced learners still have difficulty employing orthographic information to access the L2 lexicon.

LexOPS: An R package and user interface for the controlled generation of word stimuli

LexOPS is an R package and user interface designed to facilitate the generation of word stimuli for use in research. Notably, the tool permits the generation of suitably controlled word lists for any user-specified factorial design and can be adapted for use with any language. It features an intuitive graphical user interface, including the visualization of both the distributions within and relationships among variables of interest. An inbuilt database of English words is also provided, including a range of lexical variables commonly used in psycholinguistic research. This article introduces LexOPS, outlining the features of the package and detailing the sources of the inbuilt dataset. We also report a validation analysis, showing that, in comparison to stimuli of existing studies, stimuli optimized with LexOPS generally demonstrate greater constraint and consistency in variable manipulation and control. Current instructions for installing and using LexOPS are available at https://JackEdTaylor.github.io/LexOPSdocs/.

Distinct Benefits Given Large Versus Small Grain Orthographic Instruction for English-Speaking Adults Learning to Read Russian Cyrillic

Initial instruction emphasizing large grain units (i.e., words) showed distinct advantages over small grain instruction for English-speaking adults learning to read an artificial orthography (Brennan and Booth in Read Writ 28(7):917-938, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-015-9555-2 ). The current study extends this research by training 34 English-speaking adults to read Russian Cyrillic given initial instruction emphasizing either large or small units (words or letters). Results reveal no differences on word learning, but higher accuracy on letter-phoneme matching given letter-based instruction and higher accuracy on rime-rhyme matching given word-based instruction. Differences in phonological awareness (PA) skill showed that higher PA skill resulted in higher accuracy and slower reaction times only for the adults given the instruction with the word emphasis, suggesting that adults with high PA skill given word-based instruction may engage in time intensive small grain analyses (e.g., grapheme-phoneme correspondence) even when their attention is directed to larger grain units. Overall, these results extend previous findings and reveal that word and letter-based instruction each have distinct advantages for facilitating increased sensitivity to either letters/phonemes or rimes/rhymes when adults are learning a natural second (L2) consistent alphabetic orthography.

ERP evidence for asymmetric orthographic transfer between traditional and simplified Chinese

Transferring orthographic processing skills from one language to new languages is important for language learning. However, the specific orthography hypothesis and condition-based transfer hypothesis have debated orthographic transfer. No study has ever examined these debates in a logographic language, and the neural correlates of orthographic transfer in a logographic language remain unknown. Therefore, the present study uses event-related potentials to examine orthographic transfer with Hong Kong (Experiment 1) and mainland China (Experiment 2) participants who only use traditional or simplified Chinese, respectively. The participants sequentially read two of the same (repetition) or different (nonrepetition) traditional or simplified Chinese characters and judged whether they were identical. The results showed that the orthography-related N200 component was smaller in the repetition condition than in the nonrepetition condition. Importantly, for traditional Chinses users, this effect was more salient in traditional Chinese than in simplified Chinese, suggesting limited transfer from traditional to simplified Chinese. For simplified Chinese users, this effect was comparable in traditional and simplified Chinese, suggesting a smooth transfer from simplified to traditional Chinese. The results supported the condition-based transfer hypothesis, and showed asymmetric transfer between simple orthographic rules and complex ones. That is, simple orthographic rules can be transferred to complex ones smoothly, but not vice versa.

Functional orthographic units in Chinese character reading: Are there abstract radical identities?

Previous research has shown that the components of Chinese characters (e.g., semantic components, phonetic components, and radicals) serve as processing units in reading. One outstanding question concerns the existence of amodal orthographic representations that unify multiple, form-specific character components, similar to the abstract letter identities (ALIs) that unify case-specific letter forms (A/a) in Roman script. Although Chinese does not have case, a subset of semantic radicals have multiple forms (e.g., - are both "water" radicals), allowing for a test of the existence of Abstract Radical Identities (ARIs) that unify the multiple forms. In Experiment 1, a visual same-different judgement task was used to detect the presence of ARI representations. Evidence for ARIs was provided by the finding that radical pairs with different forms but the same radical identity were judged to be visually different more slowly than matched pairs of different forms with different radical identities. In Experiment 2, we evaluated ARI effects in real character reading. A lexical decision priming task compared prime-target character pairs containing radicals with the same identity but different forms (e.g., -) with matched prime-target character pairs with unrelated radicals (e.g., -). Inhibitory priming was observed only in the same-identity radical condition compared with the unrelated condition. These combined results provide, for the first time, evidence of format-free representations of orthographic units in Chinese characters-abstract radical identities (ARIs).

Further evidence for a late locus of holistic word processing: Exploring vertex effect in the word composite task

Previous studies have shown a rather late and lexical level for holistic word processing. In the present study, we evaluated whether there are early effects in holistic processing of words, taking into consideration the role of lower-level visual processes that are critical in the hierarchy of visual word recognition: the extraction of viewpoint-invariant line junctions/vertices. We used contour-deleted words in two conditions: preservation of the vertices versus preservation of midsegments and an all-contour condition. We found evidence of a composite effect that was equivalent for all materials. Thus, we found no evidence of an early contribution of holistic processing to word recognition, and confirmed that holistic word processing is related to late lexical orthographic representations.

Chinese character handwriting: A large-scale behavioral study and a database

We report on a psycholinguistic database of Chinese character handwriting based on a large-scale study that involved 203 participants, each handwriting 200 characters randomly sampled from a cohort of 1,600 characters. Apart from collecting writing latencies, durations, and accuracy, we also compiled 14 lexical variables for each character. Regressions showed that frequency, age of acquisition, and the word context (in which a character appears) are all-around and influential predictors of orthographic access (as reflected in writing latency), motor execution of handwriting (as reflected in writing duration), and accuracy. In addition, phonological factors (phonogram status, spelling regularity, and homophone density) impacted orthographic access but not handwriting execution. Semantic factors (imageability and concreteness) only affected accuracy. These results suggest, among other things, that phonology is consulted in orthographic access while handwriting. As the first of its kind, this database can be used as a source of secondary data analyses and a tool for stimulus construction in handwriting research.

Latent profile analysis of students' reading development and the relation of cognitive variables to reading profiles

Previous studies have showed that early problems with word decoding can lead to poor performance in text reading and comprehension and suggest that poor readers often struggle with reading deficits throughout their school years. Therefore, early detection of those children who are at risk for slow reading development and/or who belong to the lowest reading profiles is essential in order to organize proper support. The present study explores the heterogeneity and prevalence of latent reading profiles among 769 Finnish- and German-reading students during their first and second school years in three countries (Finland, Germany, and Italy) using latent profile analysis. The results identified three latent profiles among Finnish readers, one of which (sentence-level reading) was identified as developing slowly. Among German-reading students, four latent profiles were discovered, two of which were identified as developing slowly. The results of ordinal logistic regression modeling show that rapid automatic naming (RAN) was significantly related to poorer reading profiles among Finnish- and German-reading students, and that the poorer results in letter-sound connection testing among the German-reading group was also significantly related to poorer reading profiles. Although the educational systems have some differences between Germany and German-speaking areas of Italy, no significant country effect was detected. In addition, a child's age and spoken language did not significantly affect the student's reading profile.

The Influence of Orthography on Phonemic Knowledge: An Experimental Investigation on German and Persian

This study investigated whether the phonological representation of a word is modulated by its orthographic representation in case of a mismatch between the two representations. Such a mismatch is found in Persian, where short vowels are represented phonemically but not orthographically. Persian adult literates, Persian adult illiterates, and German adult literates were presented with two auditory tasks, an AX-discrimination task and a reversal task. We assumed that if orthographic representations influence phonological representations, Persian literates should perform worse than Persian illiterates or German literates on items with short vowels in these tasks. The results of the discrimination tasks showed that Persian literates and illiterates as well as German literates were approximately equally competent in discriminating short vowels in Persian words and pseudowords. Persian literates did not well discriminate German words containing phonemes that differed only in vowel length. German literates performed relatively poorly in discriminating German homographic words that differed only in vowel length. Persian illiterates were unable to perform the reversal task in Persian. The results of the other two participant groups in the reversal task showed the predicted poorer performance of Persian literates on Persian items containing short vowels compared to items containing long vowels only. German literates did not show this effect in German. Our results suggest two distinct effects of orthography on phonemic representations: whereas the lack of orthographic representations seems to affect phonemic awareness, homography seems to affect the discriminability of phonemic representations.

Re-learning to be different: Increased neural differentiation supports post-stroke language recovery

Identifying the neural changes that support recovery of cognitive functions after a brain lesion is important to advance our understanding of human neuroplasticity, which, in turn, forms the basis for the development of effective treatments. To date, the preponderance of neuroimaging studies has focused on localizing changes in average brain activity associated with functional recovery. Here, we took a novel approach by evaluating whether cognitive recovery in chronic stroke is related to increases in the differentiation of local neural response patterns. This approach is supported by research indicating that, in the intact brain, local neural representations become more differentiated (dissimilar) with learning (Glezer et al., 2015). We acquired fMRI data before and after 21 individuals received approximately 12 weeks of behavioral treatment for written language impairment due to a left-hemisphere stroke. We used Local-Heterogeneity Regression Analysis (Purcell and Rapp, 2018) to measure local neural response differentiation associated with written language processing, assuming that greater heterogeneity in the pattern of activity across adjacent neural areas indicates more well-differentiated neural representations. First, we observed pre to post-treatment increases in local neural differentiation (Local-Hreg) in the ventral occipital-temporal cortex of the left hemisphere. Second, we found that, in this region, higher local neural response differentiation prior to treatment was associated with less severe written language impairment, and that it also predicted greater future responsiveness to treatment. Third, we observed that changes in neural differentiation were systematically related to performance changes for trained and untrained items. Fourth, we did not observe these brain-behavior relationships for mean BOLD responses, only for Local-Hreg. Thus, this is the first investigation to quantify changes in local neural differentiation in the recovery of a cognitive function and the first to demonstrate the clear behavioral relevance of these changes. We conclude that the findings provide strong support for the novel hypothesis that the local re-differentiation of neural representations can play a significant role in functional recovery after brain lesion.

Reading and spelling skills are differentially related to phonological processing: Behavioral and fMRI study

The manuscript reports a study on a large sample (N = 170) of Polish speaking 8-13 year old children, whose brain activation was measured in relation to tasks that require auditory phonological processing. We aimed to relate brain activation to individual differences in reading and spelling. We found that individual proficiency in both reading and spelling significantly correlated with activation of the left ventral occipito-temporal cortex encompassing the Visual Word Form Area which has been implicated in automatic orthographic activations. Reading but not spelling was found to correlate with activation in the left anterior dorsal stream (anterior supramarginal and postcentral gyri). Our results indicate that the level of both reading and spelling is related to activity in areas involved in the storage of fine-grained orthographic representations. However, only the reading level is uniquely related to activity of regions responsible for the articulation, motor planning and grapheme-to-phoneme correspondence, which form the basis for effective decoding skill.

Extended categorization of conjunction object stimuli decreases the latency of attentional feature selection and recruits orthography-linked ERPs

The role of attention in driving perceptual expertise effects is controversial. The current study addressed the effect of training on ERP components related to and independent of attentional feature selection. Participants learned to categorize cartoon animals over six training sessions (8,800 trials) after which ERPs were recorded during a target detection task performed on trained and untrained stimulus sets. The onset of the selection negativity, an ERP component indexing attentional modulation, was about 60 msec earlier for trained than untrained stimuli. Trained stimuli also elicited centro-parietal N200 and N320 components that were insensitive to attentional feature selection. The scalp distribution and timecourse of these components were better matched by studies of orthography than object expertise. Source localization using eLORETA suggested that the strongest neural sources of the selection negativity were in right ventral temporal cortex whereas the strongest sources of the N200/N320 components were in left ventral temporal cortex, again consistent with the hypothesis that training recruited orthography related areas. Overall, training altered neural processes related to attentional selection, but also affected neural processes that were independent of feature selection.

The developmental trend of transposed letters effects in masked priming

In the current study, we investigated the development of transposed letter (TL) priming effects with masked priming. Recent studies have reported different and contrasting results concerning the age at which TL priming effects first appear and whether they tend to decline or increase with age. One of the aims of this study was to investigate the developmental trend of orthographic mechanisms underlying the TL effects in Italian. We tested three groups of children (second, third, and fifth graders) and a group of adults with a sandwich masked priming procedure, presenting lists of target words preceded by TL or replaced letter (RL) primes. TLs and RLs were either at the beginning (second-third letters) or the end (fourth-sixth letters) of primes in order to see whether the TL priming effect varied according to position in the letter string. We found that TL priming effects increased with age in both accuracy and latency. No effect of position was found. The results are discussed in light of a possible difference in the development of orthographic mechanisms depending on the transparency of the language.

Parallel word processing in the flanker paradigm has a rightward bias

Reading research is exhibiting growing interest in employing variants of the flanker paradigm to address several questions about reading. The paradigm is particularly suited for investigating parallel word processing, parafoveal-on-foveal influences, and visuospatial attention in a simple but constrained setting. However, this methodological deviation from natural reading warrants careful assessment of the extent to which cognitive processes underlying reading operate similarly in these respective settings. The present study investigated whether readers’ distribution of attention in the flanker paradigm resembles that observed during sentence reading; that is, with a rightward bias. Participants made lexical decisions about foveal target words while we manipulated parafoveal flanking words. In line with prior research, we established a parafoveal-on-foveal repetition effect, and this effect was increased for rightward flankers compared with leftward flankers. In a second experiment, we found that, compared with a no-flanker condition, rightward repetition flankers facilitated target processing, while leftward flankers interfered. Additionally, the repetition effect was larger for rightward than for leftward flankers. From these findings, we infer that attention in the flanker paradigm is indeed biased toward the right, and that the flanker paradigm thus provides an effective analogy to natural reading for investigating the role of visuospatial attention. The enhanced parafoveal-on-foveal effects within the attended region further underline the key role of attention in the spatial integration of orthographic information. Lastly, we conclude that future research employing the flanker paradigm should take the asymmetrical aspect of the attentional deployment into account.

An fMRI-adaptation study of phonological and orthographic selectivity to written words in adults with poor reading skills

Typical readers rely on two brain pathways for word processing in the left hemisphere: temporo-parietal cortex (TPC) and inferior frontal cortex (IFC), thought to subserve phonological decoding, and occipito-temporal cortex (OTC), including the "visual word form area" (VWFA), thought to subserve orthographic processing. How these regions are affected in developmental dyslexia has been a topic of intense research. We employed fMRI rapid adaptation (fMRI-RA) in adults with low reading skills to examine in independently-defined functional regions of interest (ROIs) phonological selectivity to written words in left TPC and IFC, and to orthographic selectivity to written words in OTC. Consistent with the phonological deficit hypothesis of dyslexia, we found responsivity but not selectivity to phonology, as accessed by written words, in the posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG) of the TPC. On the other hand, we found orthographic selectivity in the VWFA of the OTC. We also found selectivity to orthographic and not phonological processing in the IFG, a finding previously reported for typical readers. Together our results demonstrate that in adults with poor reading skills, selectivity to phonology is compromised in pSTG, while selectivity to orthography in the VWFA remains unaffected at this level of processing.

Homophone Advantage in Sentence Acceptability Judgment: An Experiment with Japanese Kanji Words and Articulatory Suppression Technique

The purpose of this study was to examine the role and nature of phonology in silent reading of Japanese sentences. An experiment was conducted using a Japanese sentence acceptability judgment task. One important finding was that participants more rapidly rejected homophonic sentences in which one two-kanji compound word was replaced by its homophone word than non-homophonic sentences. In the latter, the word was replaced by a non-homophone spelling control; that is, we observed a homophone advantage. Participants were able to identify the correct word easily through foil's homophonic mate. This indicated that activated phonology played a role in the Japanese sentence acceptability judgment task and it contributed to the error detection/recovery process. Another important finding was that the homophone facilitation effect remained under articulatory suppression. It confirmed that phonology was activated at an early stage as abstract, non-articulatory phonology.

Word inversion sensitivity as a marker of visual word form area lateralization: An application of a novel multivariate measure of laterality

An area within the ventral occipitotemporal cortex (vOTC), the "visual word form area" (VWFA), typically exhibits a strongly left-lateralized response to orthographic stimuli in skilled readers. While individual variation in VWFA lateralization has been observed, the behavioral significance of laterality differences remains unclear. Here, we test the hypothesis that differences in VWFA lateralization reflect differing preferences for holistic orthographic analysis. To examine this hypothesis, we implemented a new multivariate method that uses machine learning to assess functional lateralization, along with a traditional univariate lateralization method. We related these neural metrics to behavioral indices of holistic orthographic analysis (inversion sensitivity). The multivariate measure successfully detected the lateralization of orthographic processing in the VWFA, and as hypothesized, predicted behavioral differences in holistic orthographic analysis. An exploratory whole brain analysis identified further regions with a relationship between inversion sensitivity and lateralization: one near the junction of the inferior frontal and precentral sulci, and another along the superior temporal gyrus. We conclude that proficient native readers of English exhibit differences in cortical lateralization of the VWFA that have significant implications for reading behavior.

The role of vision and orthography in sound-shape correspondences

Non-arbitrary sound-shape correspondences (SSC), such as the "bouba-kiki" effect, have been consistently observed across languages and together with other sound-symbolic phenomena challenge the classic linguistic dictum of the arbitrariness of the sign. Yet, it is unclear what makes a sound "round" or "spiky" to the human mind. Here we tested the hypothesis that visual experience is necessary for the emergence of SSC, supported by empirical evidence showing reduced SSC in visually impaired people. Results of two experiments comparing early blind and sighted individuals showed that SSC emerged strongly in both groups. Experiment 2, however, showed a partially different pattern of SSC in sighted and blind, that was mostly explained by a different effect of orthographic letter shape: The shape of written letters (spontaneously activated by spoken words) influenced SSC in the sighted, but not in the blind, who are exposed to an orthography (Braille) in which letters do not have spiky or round outlines. In sum, early blindness does not prevent the emergence of SSC, and differences between sighted and visually impaired people may be due the indirect influence (or lack thereof) of orthographic letter shape.

Orthography-Induced Length Contrasts in the Second Language Phonological Systems of L2 Speakers of English: Evidence from Minimal Pairs

Research shows that the orthographic forms ("spellings") of second language (L2) words affect speech production in L2 speakers. This study investigated whether English orthographic forms lead L2 speakers to produce English homophonic word pairs as phonological minimal pairs. Targets were 33 orthographic minimal pairs, that is to say homophonic words that would be pronounced as phonological minimal pairs if orthography affects pronunciation. Word pairs contained the same target sound spelled with one letter or two, such as the /n/ in finish and Finnish (both /'fɪnɪʃ/ in Standard British English). To test for effects of length and type of L2 exposure, we compared Italian instructed learners of English, Italian-English late bilinguals with lengthy naturalistic exposure, and English natives. A reading-aloud task revealed that Italian speakers of English_L2 produce two English homophonic words as a minimal pair distinguished by different consonant or vowel length, for instance producing the target /'fɪnɪʃ/ with a short [n] or a long [nː] to reflect the number of consonant letters in the spelling of the words finish and Finnish. Similar effects were found on the pronunciation of vowels, for instance in the orthographic pair scene-seen (both /siːn/). Naturalistic exposure did not reduce orthographic effects, as effects were found both in learners and in late bilinguals living in an English-speaking environment. It appears that the orthographic form of L2 words can result in the establishment of a phonological contrast that does not exist in the target language. Results have implications for models of L2 phonological development.

Impact of Cyrillic on Native English Speakers' Phono-lexical Acquisition of Russian

We investigated the influence of grapheme familiarity and native language grapheme-phoneme correspondences during second language lexical learning. Native English speakers learned Russian-like words via auditory presentations containing only familiar first language phones, pictured meanings, and exposure to either Cyrillic orthographic forms (Orthography condition) or the sequence <XXX> (No Orthography condition). Orthography participants saw three types of written forms: familiar-congruent (e.g., <KOM>-[kom]), familiar-incongruent (e.g., <PAT>-[rɑt]), and unfamiliar (e.g., <ФИЛ>-[fil]). At test, participants determined whether pictures and words matched according to what they saw during word learning. All participants performed near ceiling in all stimulus conditions, except for Orthography participants on words containing incongruent grapheme-phoneme correspondences. These results suggest that first language grapheme-phoneme correspondences can cause interference during second language phono-lexical acquisition. In addition, these results suggest that orthographic input effects are robust enough to interfere even when the input does not contain novel phones.

Orthographic Input and the Acquisition of German Final Devoicing by Native Speakers of English

We present an artificial lexicon study designed to test the hypothesis that native English speakers experience interference from written input when acquiring surface voicing in German words. Native English speakers were exposed to German-like words (e.g., /ʃtɑit/ and /ʃtɑid/, both pronounced [ʃtɑit]) along with pictured meanings, and in some cases, their written forms (e.g., <Steit> and <Steid>). At test, participants whose input included the written forms were more likely to produce final voiced obstruents when naming the pictures, indicating that access to the written forms in the input interfered with their acquisition of target-like surface forms. In a separate experiment, we attempted to moderate this negative impact of the written input by explicitly telling participants about the misleading nature of the words' written forms, with no beneficial effect on their pronunciation accuracy. Together these findings indicate a powerful influence of orthographic input on second language lexical-phonological development that is not readily overcome by a simple intervention.

The flexibility of association between temporal concepts and physical space in the Japanese language

Previous studies have indicated that temporal concepts such as the past and future are associated with horizontal (left-right) space. This association has been interpreted as reflecting left-to-right writing systems. The Japanese language, however, is written both horizontally and vertically and, when texts are presented vertically, the sequence of columns runs from right to left. This study examines whether the associations between time and space are changed by the direction of the character strings using a word categorization task. Consistent with previous studies, response times and error rates indicated left-past and right-future associations when participants read words presented horizontally. On the other hand, response times indicated the opposite (i.e., left-future and right-past associations) when participants read words presented vertically. These results suggest that temporal concepts are not associated with one's body or physical space in an inflexible manner, but rather the associations can flexibly change through experience.

Orthographic and phonological selectivity across the reading system in deaf skilled readers

People who are born deaf often have difficulty learning to read. Recently, several studies have examined the neural substrates involved in reading in deaf people and found a left lateralized reading system similar to hearing people involving temporo-parietal, inferior frontal, and ventral occipito-temporal cortices. Previous studies in typical hearing readers show that within this reading network there are separate regions that specialize in processing orthography and phonology. We used fMRI rapid adaptation in deaf adults who were skilled readers to examine neural selectivity in three functional ROIs in the left hemisphere: temporoparietal cortex (TPC), inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and the visual word form area (VWFA). Results show that in deaf skilled readers, the left VWFA showed selectivity for orthography similar to what has been reported for hearing readers, the TPC showed less sensitivity to phonology than previously reported for hearing readers using the same paradigm, and the IFG showed selectivity to orthography, but not phonology (similar to what has been reported previously for hearing readers). These results provide evidence that while skilled deaf readers demonstrate coarsely tuned phonological representations in the TPC, they develop finely tuned representations for the orthography of written words in the VWFA and IFG. This result suggests that phonological tuning in the TPC may have little impact on the neural network associated with skilled reading for deaf adults.

The orthographic similarity structure of English words: Insights from network science

Network science has been applied to study the structure of the mental lexicon, the part of long-term memory where all the words a person knows are stored. Here the tools of network science are used to study the organization of orthographic word-forms in the mental lexicon and how that might influence visual word recognition. An orthographic similarity network of the English language was constructed such that each node represented an English word, and undirected, unweighted edges were placed between words that differed by an edit distance of 1, a commonly used operationalization of orthographic similarity in psycholinguistics. The largest connected component of the orthographic language network had a small-world structure and a long-tailed degree distribution. Additional analyses were conducted using behavioral data obtained from a psycholinguistic database to determine if network science measures obtained from the orthographic language network could be used to predict how quickly and accurately people process written words. The present findings show that the structure of the mental lexicon influences lexical access in visual word recognition.

Reading without words or target detection? A re-analysis and replication fMRI study of the Landolt paradigm

The Landolt paradigm is a visual scanning task intended to evoke reading-like eye-movements in the absence of orthographic or lexical information, thus allowing the dissociation of (sub-) lexical vs. visual processing. To that end, all letters in real word sentences are exchanged for closed Landolt rings, with 0, 1, or 2 open Landolt rings as targets in each Landolt sentence. A preliminary fMRI block-design study (Hillen et al. in Front Hum Neurosci 7:1-14, 2013) demonstrated that the Landolt paradigm has a special neural signature, recruiting the right IPS and SPL as part of the endogenous attention network. However, in that analysis, the brain responses to target detection could not be separated from those involved in processing Landolt stimuli without targets. The present study presents two fMRI experiments testing the question whether targets or the Landolt stimuli per se, led to the right IPS/SPL activation. Experiment 1 was an event-related re-analysis of the Hillen et al. (Front Hum Neurosci 7:1-14, 2013) data. Experiment 2 was a replication study with a new sample and identical procedures. In both experiments, the right IPS/SPL were recruited in the Landolt condition as compared to orthographic stimuli even in the absence of any target in the stimulus, indicating that the properties of the Landolt task itself trigger this right parietal activation. These findings are discussed against the background of behavioural and neuroimaging studies of healthy reading as well as developmental and acquired dyslexia. Consequently, this neuroimaging evidence might encourage the use of the Landolt paradigm also in the context of examining reading disorders, as it taps into the orientation of visual attention during reading-like scanning of stimuli without interfering sub-lexical information.

Chinese Learners of English See Chinese Words When Reading English Words

The present study examines when second language (L2) learners read words in the L2, whether the orthography and/or phonology of the translation words in the first language (L1) is activated and whether the patterns would be modulated by the proficiency in the L2. In two experiments, two groups of Chinese learners of English immersed in the L1 environment, one less proficient and the other more proficient in English, performed a translation recognition task. In this task, participants judged whether pairs of words, with an L2 word preceding an L1 word, were translation words or not. The critical conditions compared the performance of learners to reject distractors that were related to the translation word (e.g., , pronounced as /bei 1/) of an L2 word (e.g., cup) in orthography (e.g., , bad in Chinese, pronounced as /huai 4/) or phonology (e.g., , sad in Chinese, pronounced as /bei 1/). Results of Experiment 1 showed less proficient learners were slower and less accurate to reject translation orthography distractors, as compared to unrelated controls, demonstrating a robust translation orthography interference effect. In contrast, their performance was not significantly different when rejecting translation phonology distractors, relative to unrelated controls, showing no translation phonology interference. The same patterns were observed in more proficient learners in Experiment 2. Together, these results suggest that when Chinese learners of English read English words, the orthographic information, but not the phonological information of the Chinese translation words is activated. In addition, this activation is not modulated by L2 proficiency.

Orthographic influence on spoken word identification: Behavioral and fMRI evidence

The current study investigated behavioral and neuroimaging evidence for orthographic influences on auditory word identification. To assess such influences, the proportion of similar sounding words (i.e. phonological neighbors) that were also spelled similarly (i.e., orthographic neighbors) was computed for each auditorily presented word as the Orthographic-to-Phonological Overlap Ratio (OPOR). Speech intelligibility was manipulated by presenting monosyllabic words in multi-talker babble at two signal-to-noise ratios: + 3 and + 10 dB SNR. Identification rates were lower for high overlap words in the challenging + 3 dB SNR condition. In addition, BOLD contrast increased with OPOR at the more difficult SNR, and decreased with OPOR under more favorable SNR conditions. Both voxel-based and region of interest analyses demonstrated robust effects of OPOR in several cingulo-opercular regions. However, contrary to prior theoretical accounts, no task-related activity was observed in posterior regions associated with phonological or orthographic processing. We suggest that, when processing is difficult, orthographic-to-phonological feature overlap increases the availability of competing responses, which then requires additional support from domain general performance systems in order to produce a single response.

The impact of inverted text on visual word processing: An fMRI study

Visual word recognition has been studied for decades. One question that has received limited attention is how different text presentation orientations disrupt word recognition. By examining how word recognition processes may be disrupted by different text orientations it is hoped that new insights can be gained concerning the process. Here, we examined the impact of rotating and inverting text on the neural network responsible for visual word recognition focusing primarily on a region of the occipto-temporal cortex referred to as the visual word form area (VWFA). A lexical decision task was employed in which words and pseudowords were presented in one of three orientations (upright, rotated or inverted). The results demonstrate that inversion caused the greatest disruption of visual word recognition processes. Both rotated and inverted text elicited increased activation in spatial attention regions within the right parietal cortex. However, inverted text recruited phonological and articulatory processing regions within the left inferior frontal and left inferior parietal cortices. Finally, the VWFA was found to not behave similarly to the fusiform face area in that unusual text orientations resulted in increased activation and not decreased activation. It is hypothesized here that the VWFA activation is modulated by feedback from linguistic processes.

Orthographic effects in spoken word recognition: Evidence from Chinese

Extensive evidence from alphabetic languages demonstrates a role of orthography in the processing of spoken words. Because alphabetic systems explicitly code speech sounds, such effects are perhaps not surprising. However, it is less clear whether orthographic codes are involuntarily accessed from spoken words in languages with non-alphabetic systems, in which the sound-spelling correspondence is largely arbitrary. We investigated the role of orthography via a semantic relatedness judgment task: native Mandarin speakers judged whether or not spoken word pairs were related in meaning. Word pairs were either semantically related, orthographically related, or unrelated. Results showed that relatedness judgments were made faster for word pairs that were semantically related than for unrelated word pairs. Critically, orthographic overlap on semantically unrelated word pairs induced a significant increase in response latencies. These findings indicate that orthographic information is involuntarily accessed in spoken-word recognition, even in a non-alphabetic language such as Chinese.

Verification of nonwords: The baseword frequency effect in children's pseudohomophone reading

In this study, we investigated the baseword frequency effect in children and its implications for models of visual word recognition. The baseword frequency effect reflects the finding that response latencies in the lexical decision task to nonwords derived from high-frequency basewords (e.g., GREAN derived from GREEN) are shorter than for those derived from low-frequency basewords (e.g., SLEAT derived from SLEET). Importantly, the baseword frequency effect presents a challenge to current activation-based models of visual word recognition. One explanation for this effect is that the orthographic representations of high-frequency basewords are easier to access. This allows a quick progression to a verification stage in which the exact spelling of a stimulus is checked, upon which the lexicality decision is then based. The main goal of this study was to investigate whether such a verification mechanism is specifically modulated by the quality of the orthographic lexicon. We tested whether the baseword frequency effect was evident in children's lexical decisions to pseudohomophones (PsH) and whether verification accuracy varied as a function of children's orthographic knowledge. The baseword frequency effect in response latency was observed in both German-speaking adults and children. Children's spelling skills significantly influenced the accuracy of the verification stage in their responses to PsH. These findings imply that verification is an integral part of word reading and thus should be included in computational models of visual word recognition.

Elaborative feedback: Engaging reward and task-relevant brain regions promotes learning in pseudoword reading aloud

Although much is known about the cognitive and neural basis of establishing letter-sound mappings in learning word forms, relatively little is known about what makes for the most effective feedback during this process. We sought to determine the neural basis by which elaborative feedback (EF), which contains both reward-related and content-specific information, may be more helpful than feedback containing only one kind of information (simple positive feedback, PF) or the other (content feedback, CF) in learning orthography-phonology (spelling-sound) mappings for novel letter strings. Compared to CF, EF activated the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, implicated in reward processing. Compared to PF, EF activated the posterior middle temporal, superior temporal, and supramarginal gyri-regions implicated in orthography-phonology conversion. In the same comparison, EF also activated the left fusiform gyrus/visual word form area-implicated in orthographic processing. Also EF, but not CF or PF, modulated activity in the caudate nucleus. In a postscan questionnaire, EF and PF were rated as more pleasant than CF, suggesting that modulation of the caudate for EF may be due to the coupling of reward and skill content. These findings suggest the enhanced effectiveness of EF may be due to concurrent activation of reward-related and task-relevant brain regions.

The emergence of automaticity in reading: Effects of orthographic depth and word decoding ability on an adjusted Stroop measure

How long does it take for word reading to become automatic? Does the appearance and development of automaticity differ as a function of orthographic depth (e.g., French vs. English)? These questions were addressed in a longitudinal study of English and French beginning readers. The study focused on automaticity as obligatory processing as measured in the Stroop test. Measures of decoding ability and the Stroop effect were taken at three time points during first grade (and during second grade in the United Kingdom) in 84 children. The study is the first to adjust the classic Stroop effect for inhibition (of distracting colors). The adjusted Stroop effect was zero in the absence of reading ability, and it was found to develop in tandem with decoding ability. After a further control for decoding, no effects of age or orthography were found on the adjusted Stroop measure. The results are in line with theories of the development of whole word recognition that emphasize the importance of the acquisition of the basic orthographic code.

L2 Word Recognition: Influence of L1 Orthography on Multi-syllabic Word Recognition

L2 reading research suggests that L1 orthographic experience influences L2 word recognition. Nevertheless, the findings on multi-syllabic words in English are still limited despite the fact that a vast majority of words are multi-syllabic. The study investigated whether L1 orthography influences the recognition of multi-syllabic words, focusing on the position of an embedded word. The participants were Arabic ESL learners, Chinese ESL learners, and native speakers of English. The task was a word search task, in which the participants identified a target word embedded in a pseudoword at the initial, middle, or final position. The search accuracy and speed indicated that all groups showed a strong preference for the initial position. The accuracy data further indicated group differences. The Arabic group showed higher accuracy in the final than middle, while the Chinese group showed the opposite and the native speakers showed no difference between the two positions. The findings suggest that L2 multi-syllabic word recognition involves unique processes.