Prosodic phonological representations early in visual word recognition.

Two experiments examined the nature of the phonological representations used during visual word recognition. We tested whether a minimality constraint (R. Frost, 1998) limits the complexity of early representations to a simple string of phonemes. Alternatively, readers might activate elaborated representations that include prosodic syllable information before lexical access. In a modified lexical decision task (Experiment 1), words were preceded by parafoveal previews that were congruent with a target's initial syllable as well as previews that contained 1 letter more or less than the initial syllable. Lexical decision times were faster in the syllable congruent conditions than in the incongruent conditions. In Experiment 2, we recorded brain electrical potentials (electroencephalograms) during single word reading in a masked priming paradigm. The event-related potential waveform elicited in the syllable congruent condition was more positive 250-350 ms posttarget compared with the waveform elicited in the syllable incongruent condition. In combination, these experiments demonstrate that readers process prosodic syllable information early in visual word recognition in English. They offer further evidence that skilled readers routinely activate elaborated, speechlike phonological representations during silent reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attention constraints of semantic activation during visual word recognition.

The reduction of semantic priming following letter search of the prime suggests that semantic activation can be blocked if attention is allocated to the letter level during word processing. Is this true even for the very fast-acting component of semantic activation? To test this, the authors explored semantic priming of lexical decision at stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) of either 200 or 1000 ms. Following semantic prime processing, priming occurred at both SOAs. In contrast, no priming occurred at the long SOA following letter-level processing. Of greatest interest, at the short SOA there was priming following the less demanding consonant/vowel task but not following the more attention-demanding letter search task. Hence, semantic activation can occur even when attention is directed to the letter level, provided there are sufficient resources to support this activation. The authors conclude that the default setting during word recognition is for fast-acting activation of the semantic system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Suedohomofoan effects in visual word recognition: Evidence for phonological processing.

Investigated the pseudohomophone effect, which is considered to be evidence that phonological recoding occurs in the lexical decision task in which a letter string like brane is identified as a nonword. 22 undergraduates read 156 letter strings, half of which were words, and identified them as words or nonwords. Half of the nonwords were pseudohomophones like brane, which sounds like a real word but is not spelled like one; half were strings like slint, which neither looks nor sounds like a real word. Response time to pseudohomophones was slower than response time to other nonwords. The interpretation of this result is that the letter string brane is transformed into a phonological code that accesses the entry for brain in a phonological lexicon, thus necessitating a time-consuming spelling check to avoid making a false positive response. Since letter strings like slint have no lexical entries, a postaccess spelling check is not necessary. Thus, the pseudohomophone effect reflects phonological processing. (French abstract) (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Activation of semantic and phonological codes during reading.

Examined coding processes involved in reading connected text in 3 experiments with 54 Ss who read text passages and occasionally responded to lexical-decision probes. Exp I focused on semantic and surface codes. Results suggest that the activation of semantic codes increased over time, whereas surface codes did not. In addition, Ss who were instructed to remember the exact wording of the passages showed stronger activation of surface codes than did Ss who read for comprehension. Exps II and III explored the role of phonological codes in reading. Results from Exp II indicate that phonological codes were activated by specific words in a passage; however, Exp III results fail to demonstrate that phonological codes were activated by the more general passage context. Combined results suggest that reading involves several coding systems that are activated according to time and reading instruction constraints. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Facilitation of word recognition by semantic priming in schizophrenia.

Schizophrenic (n?=?21), bipolar (n?=?18), and normal control subjects (n?=?21) were compared on a word recognition measure of semantic priming. The task involved the presentation of related, neutral, and unrelated word pairs; the second word (target word) in each pair was presented in a degraded form. Facilitation was defined as the accuracy of target word recognition for the related word pairs minus accuracy for the neutral word pairs. Titration, achieved by manipulating the degradation of the target word, was used to maintain each subject's overall accuracy for related and neutral items at approximately 50%. This procedure minimized the artifactual effects of overall accuracy on the difference score. Schizophrenics exceeded both normal control subjects and bipolar subjects on facilitation. Bipolar subjects did not differ from control subjects. The results support Maher's hypothesis that semantic priming effects are heightened in schizophrenia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic and phonological codes interact in single word production.

The relationship between semantic–syntactic and phonological levels in speaking was investigated using a picture naming procedure with simultaneously presented visual or auditory distractor words. Previous results with auditory distractors have been used to support the independent stage model (e.g., H. Schriefers, A. S. Meyer, & W. J. M. Levelt, 1990), whereas results with visual distractors have been used to support an interactive view (e.g., P. A. Starreveld & W. La Heij, 1996). Experiment 1 demonstrated that with auditory distractors, semantic effects preceded phonological effects, whereas the reverse pattern held for visual distractors. Experiment 2 indicated that the results for visual distractors followed the auditory pattern when distractor presentation time was limited. Experiment 3 demonstrated an interaction between phonological and semantic relatedness of distractors for auditory presentation, supporting an interactive account of lexical access in speaking. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

New evidence for phonological processing during visual word recognition: The case of Arabic.

Lexical decision and naming were examined with words and pseudowords in literary Arabic and with transliterations of words in a Palestinian dialect that has no written form. Although the transliterations were visually unfamiliar, they were not easily rejected in lexical decision, and they were more slowly accepted in phonologically based lexical decision. Naming transliterations of spoken words was slower than naming of literary words and pseudowords. Apparently, phonological computation is mandatory for both lexical decision and naming. A large frequency effect in both lexical decision and naming suggests that addressed phonology is an option for familiar orthographic patterns. The frequency effect on processing transliterations indicated that lexical phonology is involved with prelexical phonological computation even if addressed phonology is not possible. These data support a combination between a cascade-type process, in which partial products of the grapheme-to-phoneme translation activate phonological units in the lexicon, and an interactive model, in which the activated lexical units feed back, shaping the prelexical phonological computation process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When are morphemic and semantic priming observed in visual word recognition?

J. Stolz and D. Besner (1998) reported a dissociation between morphemic and semantic priming in the context of lexical decision. Morphemic priming was observed following letter search on the prime display, but semantic priming was not. The 14 participants in the present experiment identified the color of a single letter in the prime display before making a lexical decision to the target. Both morphemic and semantic priming were observed. These results are discussed in relation to the observation that identifying the color of a single letter of a word in the Stroop task is associated with a reduction in the size of the Stroop effect as compared to when all letters are colored. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dissociative effects of stimulus quality on semantic and morphological contexts in visual word recognition.

Semantic and morphological contexts were manipulated jointly with stimulus quality under conditions where there were few related prime-target pairs (i.e., low relatedness proportion) in a lexical decision experiment. Additive effects of semantic context and stimulus quality on RT were observed, replicating previous work. In contrast, morphological context interacted with stimulus quality. This dissociation is discussed in the context of Besner and colleagues' evolving multistage framework. The essence of the account is that 1) stimulus quality affects feature and letter levels, but not later levels, 2) feedback from semantics to the lexical level is inoperative under low relatedness proportion conditions (hence stimulus quality and semantic context yield additive effects), whereas 3) feedback from the lexical level to the letter level is intact, hence stimulus quality and morphological context produce an interaction by virtue of them affecting a common stage of processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

General slowing in semantic priming and word recognition.

Analyses of lexical decision studies revealed that (1) older (O) adults' mean semantic priming effect was 1.44 times that of younger (Y) adults, (2) regression lines describing the relations between O and Y adults' latencies in related (O?=?1.54 Y?–?112) and unrelated conditions (O?=?1.50 Y?–?93) were not significantly different, and (3) that there was a proportional relation between O and Y adults' priming effects (O?=?1.48 Y?–?2). Analyses of word-naming studies yielded similar results. Analyses of delayed pronunciation data (D. A. Balota & J. M. Duchek, 1988) revealed that word recognition was 1.47 times slower in O adults, whereas O adults' output processes were only 1.26 times slower. Overall, analyses of whole latencies and durations of component processes provide converging evidence for a general slowing factor of approximately 1.5 for lexical information processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attentional demands of visual word recognition.

Becker's (1976, 1979, 1980, 1985; Becker & Killion, 1977; Eisenberg & Becker, 1982) verification model was used as a framework to investigate the attentional demands of word recognition. In two experiments, a lexical decision task and an auditory probe task were performed in single- and dual-task conditions. Responses to probes were divided into detection and movement measures that indexed the demands of recognition and response output, respectively. In Experiment 1, single- to dual-task decrements in probe detection performance were larger during low-frequency as compared with high-frequency trials. This finding indicates that the attentional demands of word recognition vary with word frequency. These findings were replicated in Experiment 2, which was designed to separate a response compatibility and a capacity interpretation of the results. The findings are interpreted within Becker's verification model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Automatic activation of phonological information in reading: evidence from the semantic relatedness decision task

A semantic relatedness decision task was used to investigate whether phonological recording occurs automatically and whether it mediates lexical access in visual word recognition and reading. In this task, subjects read a pair of words and decided whether they were related or unrelated in meaning. In Experiment 1, unrelated word-homophone pairs (e.g., LION-BARE) and their visual controls (e.g., LION-BEAN) as well as related word pairs (e.g., FISH-NET) were presented. Homophone pairs were more likely to be judged as related or more slowly rejected as unrelated than their control pairs, suggesting phonological access of word meanings. In Experiment 2, word-pseudohomophone pairs (e.g., TABLE-CHARE) and their visual controls (e.g., TABLE-CHARK) as well as related and unrelated word pairs were presented. Pseudohomophone pairs were more likely to be judged as related or more slowly rejected as unrelated than their control pairs, again suggesting automatic phonological recording in reading.     

Toward a strong phonological theory of visual word recognition: true issues and false trails

A strong phonological theory of reading is proposed and discussed. The first claim of this article is that current debates on word recognition are often based on different axioms regarding the cognitive structures of the mental lexicon rather than conflicting empirical evidence. These axioms lead to different interpretations of the same data. It is argued that once the implicit axioms of competing theories in visual word recognition are explicated, a strong phonological model presents a viable and coherent approach. The assumptions underlying a strong phonological theory of reading are outlined, and 4 theoretical questions are examined: Is phonological recoding a mandatory phase of print processing? Is phonology necessary for lexical access? Is phonology necessary for accessing meaning? How can phonology be derived from orthographic structure? These issues are integrated into a general theory that is constrained by all of the findings.     

Levels of representation in visual word recognition: a dissociation between morphological and semantic processing

A robust semantic priming effect typically occurs in visual word recognition if the prime is read before a response to the target. However, this effect is dramatically reduced if a letter search is performed on the prime prior to responding to the target. Three lexical decision experiments document the new observation that morphological priming is preserved following letter search on the prime. This dissociation between morphological and semantic priming following letter search can be understood in the context of an interactive activation framework. In addition, the implications of these results for connectionist and compound cue accounts of word recognition, as well as the issue of automaticity in word recognition, are discussed.     

Evidence of flexible coding in visual word recognition.

In 3 visual word recognition experiments, the authors examined Ss' differential dependence on phonological vs orthographic information in accessing the lexicon. The critical manipulation was the presence or absence of pseudohomophones in the nonword context of a lexical decision task. Ss received a list with either no pseudohomophones (NPsH group) or 17–30% pseudohomophones among the nonwords (PsH group). In the 1st 2 experiments Ss in the PsH group were faster and no less accurate on word trials than Ss in the NPsH group. Furthermore, performance in the NPsH group was adversely affected by phonological inconsistency in the target's orthographic neighborhood. In the final experiment, a double lexical decision paradigm was used, and performance on orthographically similar but phonologically dissimilar pairs differed in the 2 conditions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Activation of phonological codes before access to character meaning in written Chinese.

Two experiments examined whether the speed of activating different aspects of a word's meaning influences the time course of accessing phonology and meaning. The authors used a backward masking paradigm with Chinese materials. When targets were exposed at threshold + 14 ms, homophonic masks were observed to facilitate target identification. Semantic masks in the absence of associative relatedness to targets did not affect recognition, irrespective of target semantic vagueness. Associate masks facilitated the recognition of semantically precise but not vague targets. These findings suggest that phonological activation precedes semantic activation and the activation of associative relatedness of vague-semantic characters. The authors argue that phonological codes are accessed through a character-as-a-whole-to-sound-as-a-whole association. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual grouping in visual word recognition

Morphine has been reported to possess immunosuppressive actions in both in vitro as well as in vivo assays of immune function. Our work in female B6C3F1 mice, surgically implanted with a 75-mg time release morphine pellet, has confirmed previous reports of a rapid loss in the cellularity of the spleen and thymus. To evaluate the effect of morphine on the subpopulations of cells in the thymus, two color fluorescence flow cytometry studies were performed. Fluorescently conjugated monoclonal antibodies specific for the murine cell surface CD4 and CD8 markers were used to identify the four major subpopulations of thymocytes. These studies indicated that morphine pellet-implanted mice suffered a loss in each of the four thymocyte subpopulations in comparison to placebo-implanted mice. However, the loss (> 90%) in the important CD4+/CD8+ subpopulation of immature thymocytes greatly exceeded that which was observed for any other subpopulation. Kinetic studies of morphine's effect on the thymocyte subpopulations revealed that the maximal depletion of the CD4+/CD8+ cells occurs approximately 4 days after pellet implantation. Thymocyte cell populations recovered by 14 days, with an increase above placebo for the double positive cells. Naltrexone administration blocked thymic alterations, suggesting that these immunologic consequences of morphine may be mediated through an opiate receptor. Measurements in thymocytes from morphine pellet-implanted mice showed an increased level of DNA fragmentation, whereas in vitro exposure to morphine (1-100 microM) produced no such increases. This suggests morphine may be working indirectly to induce apoptosis of immature thymocytes.     

Visual word recognition in bilinguals: Evidence from masked phonological priming.

Bilingual written language representation was investigated with the masked phonological priming paradigm. Pseudohomophonic and control primes of French target words were used to show that Dutch–French bilinguals exhibit the same pattern of phonological and orthographic priming as native French speakers, which suggests that the same processes underlie first- and second-language processing. It was also found that for bilinguals, but not monolinguals, it is possible to prime a target word of the second language with a homophonic stimulus (either word or nonword) of the first language. This interlingual phonological priming effect was of the same size as the intralingual priming effect. Implications for theories of bilingual written language representation and for the interpretation of the masked phonological priming paradigm are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evidence for sequential processing in visual word recognition.

The orthographic uniqueness point (OUP) of a word is introduced as the position of the 1st letter, reading from left to right, that distinguishes a word from all other printed words. In 3 experiments, observers named words that had early versus late OUPs. With unlimited viewing time, early-OUP words were named faster than late-OUP words. The effect disappeared in a delayed-naming task; hence, it was not associated with response production. The effect remained when exposure duration was reduced to limit eye movements. Results indicate that observers process the letters of a word in left-to-right order, contrary to strictly parallel accounts of word identification. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evidence for the use of phonological representations during transsaccadic word recognition.

The authors explored the role of phonological representations in the integration of lexical information across saccadic eye movements. Study participants executed a saccade to a preview letter string that was presented extrafoveally. In Experiment 1, the preview string was replaced by a target string during the saccade, and the participants performed a lexical decision. Targets with phonologically regular initial trigrams benefited more from a preview than did targets with irregular initial trigrams. In Experiment 2, words with regularly pronounced initial trigrams were more likely to be correctly identified from the preview alone. In Experiment 3, participants were more likely to detect a change across a saccade from regular to irregular initial trigrams than from irregular to regular trigrams. The results suggest that phonological representations are activated from an extrafoveal preview and that this phonological information can be integrated with foveal information following a saccade. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)