Morphology in the Mental Lexicon: A Computational Model for Visual Word Recognition

Author(s):  
R. Harald Baayen ◽  
Robert Schreuder ◽  
Richard Sproat
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ya-Ning Chang ◽  
Steve Furber ◽  
Matthew Lambon Ralph ◽  
Stephen Welbourne

AbstractLexical decision is an important paradigm in studies of visual word recognition yet the underlying mechanisms supporting the activity are not well understood. While most models of visual word recognition focus on orthographic processing as the primary locus of the lexical decision, a number of behavioural studies have suggested a flexible role for semantic processing regulated by the similarity of the nonword foil to real words. Here we developed a computational model that interactively combines visual-orthographic, phonological and semantic processing to perform lexical decisions. Importantly, the model was able to differentiate words from nonwords by dynamically integrating measures of polarity across the key processing layers. The model was more reliant on semantic information when nonword foils were pseudowords as opposed to consonant strings. Moreover, the model was able to capture a range of standard reading effects in lexical decision. Damage to the model also resulted in reading patterns observed in patients with pure alexia, phonological dyslexia, and semantic dementia, demonstrating for the first time that both normal and neurologically-impaired lexical decision can be addressed in a connectionist computational model of reading.


Author(s):  
Manuel Perea ◽  
Victoria Panadero

The vast majority of neural and computational models of visual-word recognition assume that lexical access is achieved via the activation of abstract letter identities. Thus, a word’s overall shape should play no role in this process. In the present lexical decision experiment, we compared word-like pseudowords like viotín (same shape as its base word: violín) vs. viocín (different shape) in mature (college-aged skilled readers), immature (normally reading children), and immature/impaired (young readers with developmental dyslexia) word-recognition systems. Results revealed similar response times (and error rates) to consistent-shape and inconsistent-shape pseudowords for both adult skilled readers and normally reading children – this is consistent with current models of visual-word recognition. In contrast, young readers with developmental dyslexia made significantly more errors to viotín-like pseudowords than to viocín-like pseudowords. Thus, unlike normally reading children, young readers with developmental dyslexia are sensitive to a word’s visual cues, presumably because of poor letter representations.


Author(s):  
Diane Pecher ◽  
Inge Boot ◽  
Saskia van Dantzig ◽  
Carol J. Madden ◽  
David E. Huber ◽  
...  

Previous studies (e.g., Pecher, Zeelenberg, & Wagenmakers, 2005) found that semantic classification performance is better for target words with orthographic neighbors that are mostly from the same semantic class (e.g., living) compared to target words with orthographic neighbors that are mostly from the opposite semantic class (e.g., nonliving). In the present study we investigated the contribution of phonology to orthographic neighborhood effects by comparing effects of phonologically congruent orthographic neighbors (book-hook) to phonologically incongruent orthographic neighbors (sand-wand). The prior presentation of a semantically congruent word produced larger effects on subsequent animacy decisions when the previously presented word was a phonologically congruent neighbor than when it was a phonologically incongruent neighbor. In a second experiment, performance differences between target words with versus without semantically congruent orthographic neighbors were larger if the orthographic neighbors were also phonologically congruent. These results support models of visual word recognition that assume an important role for phonology in cascaded access to meaning.


2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicola Molinaro ◽  
Mikel Lizarazu ◽  
Jon Andoni Dunabeitia ◽  
Manuel Carreiras

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