Previewing the neighborhood: The role of orthographic neighbors as parafoveal previews in reading.

In 2 experiments, a boundary technique was used with parafoveal previews that were identical to a target (e.g., sleet), a word orthographic neighbor (sweet), or an orthographically matched nonword (speet). In Experiment 1, low-frequency words in orthographic pairs were targets, and high-frequency words were previews. In Experiment 2, the roles were reversed. In Experiment 1, neighbor words provided as much preview benefit as identical words and greater benefit than nonwords, whereas in Experiment 2, neighbor words provided no greater preview benefit than nonwords. These results indicate that the frequency of a preview influences the extraction of letter information without setting up appreciable competition between previews and targets. This is consistent with a model of word recognition in which early stages largely depend on excitation of letter information, and competition between lexical candidates becomes important only in later stages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic ambiguity effects in word identification.

The influence of semantic ambiguity on word identification processes was explored in a series of word naming and lexical-decision experiments. There was no reliable ambiguity effect in 2 naming experiments, although an ambiguity advantage in lexical decision was obtained when orthographically legal nonwords were used. No ambiguity effect was found in lexical decision when orthographically illegal nonwords were used, implying a semantic locus for the ambiguity advantage. These results were simulated by using a distributed memory model that also produces the ambiguity disadvantage in gaze duration that has been obtained with a reading comprehension task. Ambiguity effects in the model arise from the model's attempt to activate multiple meanings of an ambiguous word in response to presentation of that word's orthographic pattern. Reasons for discrepancies in empirical results and implications for distributed memory models are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Search for a singular word or nonword.

Observers looked for an out-of-category item, either a singular word in a list of nonwords (i.e., random collections of letters) or a singular nonword in a list of words. When list items were presented simultaneously (Exp 1), words were detected faster than nonwords, but a singular word in a nonword list was missed more often than a singular nonword in a word list. These results are consistent with the internal-noise principle (INP). According to the INP, legal letter sequences are more likely to be misperceived as illegal than are illegal sequences as legal; thus, there was more rechecking of perceived nonwords than perceived words. With rapid serial visual presentation of list items (Exp 2), the effect of list type vanished. The missing-feature principle, which credits unresolved letters and features to legal letter sequences wherever possible, was as strong and evident as the INP during early processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Factors affecting children's reading of rimes: Reading ability, word frequency, and rime-neighborhood size.

Beginning readers were studied in 2 experiments to examine the influence of reading ability, word frequency, and rime-neighborhood size (the number of single syllable words with the same rime) on word and nonword recognition. Forty 1st and 2nd graders read 53 words and 27 nonwords containing rimes from different-size neighborhoods. Children reading at or below a 2nd-grade level were less affected by rime-neighborhoods than children reading at or above a 3rd-grade level. Rimes from large neighborhoods were read correctly more often in lists and stories than rimes from moderate or small neighborhoods, particularly in low-frequency words. As children learn to read, they become increasingly sensitive to rime-neighborhood size. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Single- versus dual-process models of lexical decision performance: Insights from response time distributional analysis.

This article evaluates 2 competing models that address the decision-making processes mediating word recognition and lexical decision performance: a hybrid 2-stage model of lexical decision performance and a random-walk model. In 2 experiments, nonword type and word frequency were manipulated across 2 contrasts (pseudohomophone-legal nonword and legal-illegal nonword). When nonwords became more wordlike (i.e., BRNTA vs. BRANT vs. BRANE), response latencies to nonwords were slowed and the word frequency effect increased. More important, distributional analyses revealed that the Nonword Type = Word Frequency interaction was modulated by different components of the response time distribution, depending on the specific nonword contrast. A single-process random-walk model was able to account for this particular set of findings more successfully than the hybrid 2-stage model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Basic decoding components in reading: Two dissociable feature extraction processes.

Two views of the feature-extraction process underlying visual word recognition are contrasted. One asserts that features that span individual letters (configurational features) are functional. The other asserts instead that preliminary letter identification alone subserves word recognition. Configurational feature theory predicts that since case alternation eliminates configurational features, words should be more disrupted than nonwords because words have more configurational features than nonwords. The alternative theory predicts that since only preliminary letter identification underlies both word and nonword recognition, any effect of case alternation should be at least as disruptive to nonwords as to words. Two experiments, with 66 undergraduates, varied the utility of configurational features by case alternation and demonstrated that lexical decision provides data consistent with configurational feature theory, but naming latency provides data consistent with preliminary letter identification. Additional findings suggest that configurational features subserve only a familiarity discrimination process that can be recruited for some tasks but is eschewed for others. Tasks that require that a word be uniquely specified rely on preliminary letter identification; case alternation effects in these latter tasks may reflect delays in the mapping of abstract information back on to the original sensory pattern (perceptual integration). (French abstract) (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Disruption to word or letter processing? The origins of case-mixing effects

MiXeD-cAsE stimuli have long been used to test whether word recognition is based on holistic visual information or preliminary letter identification. However, without knowing which properties of mixed-case stimuli disrupt processing, it is not possible to determine which visual units mediate word recognition. The present studies examined the effects of case mixing on word and nonword naming as a function of (a) whether spaces were inserted between letters and (b) whether letter size was alternated independent of letter case. The results suggest that case-mixing disruption effects are due to at least 2 factors: the introduction of inappropriate grouping between letters with the same size and case, and the disruption of transletter features. The data support a model of visual lexical access based on the input from multiple visually based units.     

Event-related potentials differentiate the effects of aging on word and nonword repetition in explicit and implicit memory tasks.

Explicit memory declines with age while implicit memory remains largely intact. These experiments extended behavioral findings by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) in young and elderly adults during repetition priming and recognition memory paradigms. Words and pronounceable nonwords repeated after 1 of 3 delays. Stimuli were categorized as either word-nonword or old-new. Repeated items elicited more positive-going potentials in both tasks. Hemispheric asymmetries for word and nonword processing were observed during lexical decision: Repetition effects were larger over the left hemisphere for words and over the right hemisphere for nonwords. For the young, ERP repetition effects were larger during recognition memory. For old adults, conversely, repetition produced more positive-going waveforms during lexical decision. The elderly had ERP and behavioral deficits at long recognition delays. ERP repetition effects in the elderly, like behavioral performance, were preserved in an implicit task but impaired in an explicit memory task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Establishing a time-line of word recognition: evidence from eye movements and event-related potentials

The average duration of eye fixations in reading places constraints on the time for lexical processing. Data from event related potential (ERP) studies of word recognition can illuminate stages of processing within a single fixation on a word. In the present study, high and low frequency regular and exception words were used as targets in an eye movement reading experiment and a high-density electrode ERP lexical decision experiment. Effects of lexicality (words vs pseudowords vs consonant strings), word frequency (high vs low frequency) and word regularity (regular vs exception spelling-sound correspondence) were examined. Results suggest a very early time-course for these aspects of lexical processing within the context of a single eye fixation.     

Neighborhood effects in visual word recognition: Effects of letter delay and nonword context difficulty.

The role of a target's orthographic neighborhood in visual word recognition was investigated in 2 lexical decision experiments. In both experiments, some stimuli had 1 letter delayed relative to the presentation of the rest of the stimulus. Exp 1 showed that delaying a letter position, which yielded a potentially competitive neighbor, was more costly to target recognition than delaying a position that yielded no neighbors. This effect was strongest when one of these neighbors was of higher frequency than the target itself. Additionally, the effect was reduced for words with a high friendly-to-unfriendly-neighbor ratio (friendly neighbors being those words containing the delayed letter). In Exp 2 the difficulty of the word–nonword discrimination was manipulated by varying the density of the nonwords' neighborhoods. Only when the nonwords had many neighbors at several positions did the word responses show neighborhood competition effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of spatial attention in visual word processing.

Ss made lexical decisions on a target letter string presented above or below fixation. In Exps 1 and 2, target location was cued 100 msec in advance of target onset. Responses were faster on validly than on invalidly cued trials. In Exp 3, the target was sometimes accompanied by irrelevant stimuli on the other side of fixation; in such cases, responses were slowed (a spatial filtering effect). Both cuing and filtering effects on response time were additive with effects of word frequency and lexical status (words vs nonwords). These findings are difficult to reconcile with claims that spatial attention is less involved in processing familiar words than in unfamiliar words and nonwords. The results can be reconciled with a late-selection locus of spatial attention only with difficulty but are easily explained by early selection models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading aloud: Qualitative differences in the relation between stimulus quality and word frequency as a function of context.

Virtually all theories of visual word recognition assume (typically implicitly) that when a pathway is used, processing within that pathway always unfolds in the same way. This view is challenged by the observation that simple variations in list composition are associated with qualitative changes in performance. The present experiments demonstrate that when reading aloud, the joint effects of stimulus quality and word frequency on response time are driven by the presence/absence of nonwords in the list. Interacting effects of these factors are seen when only words appear in the experiment, whereas additive effects are seen when words and nonwords are randomly intermixed. One way to explain these and other data appeals to the distinction between cascaded processing (or interactive activation) on the one hand versus a thresholded mode of processing on the other, with contextual factors determining which mode of processing dominates. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evidence for a parallel input serial analysis model of word processing.

A parallel input serial analysis (PISA) model of word processing was developed and tested. The goal was to expand on the "critical processing duration" hypothesis of N. F. Johnson et al (1989) so that both single-word and multiple-word presentation, letter detection data could be explained. In Experiments 1–3 four different word frequency categories on a single-presentation, letter detection task were used. These three experiments indicated that there was a curvilinear relationship between word frequency and letter detection reaction time (RT). That is, letter detection RTs for medium-high-frequency words were significantly longer than letter detection RTs for very-high-, low-, and very-low-frequency words. These results support the PISA model rather than the A. F. Healy et al (see record 1987-23957-001) version of the unitization model. In Experiments 4–5 multiple-presentation (i.e., two words), letter detection tasks were used. The PISA model could also account for the results from these two experiments, but the unitization model could not. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Phonological codes are used to access the lexicon during silent reading.

Readers' eye movements were monitored as they read sentences containing 1 member of a homophonic heterograph pair (e.g., soul-sole) or an unambiguous frequency- and length-matched control word. Prior context was either semantically neutral (Experiment 1) or semantically biasing (Experiment 2). The meaning dominance and word frequency of the heterographic targets were manipulated such that half were balanced and half were biased, and half were high frequency and half were low frequency. The processing pattern for both high- and low-frequency heterographs mirrored the pattern commonly observed for lexically ambiguous words. These findings are consistent with models of word recognition in which phonological codes activate word meaning for both high- and low-frequency words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differential age effects for case and hue mixing in visual word recognition.

The authors compare older adults' lexical-decision data with younger adults' data reported in P. Allen, A. F. Smith, et al. (2002). On the basis of their work, it was proposed that consistent-case words would be processed by the faster holistic (magnodominated) stream, but that mixed-case words would be processed by the slower analytic (interblob-dominated or blob-dominated) streams. Hue mixing was predicted to have no effect on consistent-case performance, but mixed-hue/mixed-case words were predicted to be recognized faster than monochrome/mixed-case words. Younger adults showed the predicted results, but older adults did not. These results suggest that holistic central processes are maintained, but that older adults exhibited an analytic decrement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Strategies for visual word recognition and orthographical depth: A multilingual comparison.

We investigated the psychological reality of the concept of orthographical depth and its influence on visual word recognition by examining naming performance in Hebrew, English, and Serbo-Croatian. Experiment 1 revealed that the lexical status of the stimulus (high-frequency words, low-frequency words, and nonwords) significantly affected naming in Hebrew (the deepest of the three orthographies). This effect was only moderate in English and nonsignificant in Serbo-Croatian (the shallowest of the three orthographies). Moreover, only in Hebrew did lexical status have similar effects on naming and lexical decision performance. Experiment 2 revealed that semantic priming effects in naming were larger in Hebrew than in English and completely absent in Serbo-Croatian. Experiment 3 revealed that a large proportion of nonlexical tokens (nonwords) in the stimulus list affects naming words in Hebrew and in English, but not in Serbo-Croatian. Results support the orthographical depth hypothesis and suggest, in general, that in shallow orthographies phonology is generated directly from print, whereas in deep orthographies phonology is derived from the internal lexicon. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modeling the Effects of Repetitions, Similarity, and Normative Word Frequency on Old-New Recognition and Judgments of Frequency.

Judgments of frequency for targets (old items) and foils (similar; dissimilar) steadily increase as the number of times a target is studied increases, but discrimination of targets from similar foils does not steadily improve, a phenomenon termed registration without learning (D. L. Hintzman & T. Curran, 1995; D. L. Hintzman, T. Curran, & B. Oppy, 1992). The present experiment explores this phenomenon with words of differing normative word frequency. The retrieving-effectively-from-memory model (REM; R. M. Shifrrin & M. Steyvers, 1997, 1998) predicts that low-frequency words will be better recognized than high-frequency words because low-frequency words have more distinctive memory representations. A corollary of this assumption predicts that the typical recognition word-frequency effect will be disrupted when similar foils are tested. These predictions were confirmed, but to fit both the recognition and the judgment-of-frequency data, the authors used a "dual-process" extension of the REM model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Scope of word meaning activation during sentence processing by young and older adults

In a naming experiment, we examined word meaning activation on-line during sentence processing by younger and older adults. Sentences were biased to either the most or least frequently used meaning of a sentence-final ambiguous word. In order to determine the scope of initial meaning activation, targets represented either high- or low-salient semantic relationships to a single sense of the ambiguous word in context. Both age groups evidenced context-dependent activation of word meaning. In addition, context activated a wide scope of meaning that included both high- and low-salience aspects of the ambiguous words. These results contradict predictions based on the inhibition deficit hypothesis (Hasher & Zacks, 1988). However, they are compatible with an interactive activation model of language comprehension that does not discriminate among age groups.     

Word frequency effects on recall, recognition, and word fragment completion tests.

In 3 experiments, the effect of word frequency on an indirect word fragment completion test and on direct free-recall and Yes–no recognition tests was investigated. In Experiment 1, priming in word fragment completion was substantially greater for low-frequency words than for high-frequency words, but free recall was unaffected. Experiment 2 replicated the word fragment completion result and showed a corresponding effect in recognition. Experiment 3 replicated the low-frequency priming advantage in word fragment completion with the set of words that P. L. Tenpenny and E. J. Shoben (1992) had used in reporting the opposite pattern in word fragment completion. Using G. Mandler's (1980) dual-process theory, the authors argue that recognition and word fragment completion tests both rely on within-item integration that influences familiarity, whereas recall hinges on elaboration that influences retrievability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Making things difficult in lexical decision: The impact of pseudohomophones and transposed-letter nonwords on frequency and semantic priming effects.

Performance in a lexical decision task is crucially dependent on the difficulty of the word–nonword discrimination. More wordlike nonwords cause not only a latency increase for words but also, as reported by Stone and Van Orden (1993), larger word frequency effects. Several current models of lexical decision making can explain these types of results in terms of a single mechanism, a mechanism driven by the nature of the interactions within the lexicon. In 2 experiments, we replicated Stone and Van Orden's increased frequency effect using both pseudohomophones (e.g., BEEST) and transposed-letter nonwords (e.g., JUGDE) as the more wordlike nonwords. In a 3rd experiment, we demonstrated that simply increasing word latencies without changing the difficulty of the word–nonword discrimination does not produce larger frequency effects. These results are reasonably consistent with many current models. In contrast, neither pseudohomophones nor transposed-letter nonwords altered the size of semantic priming effects across 4 additional experiments, posing a challenge to models that would attempt to explain both nonword difficulty effects and semantic priming effects in lexical decision tasks in terms of a single, lexically driven mechanism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)