Compositionality of the Constituent Characters in Chinese Two-Character-Word Recognition by Adult Readers of High and Low Chinese Proficiency

Author(s):  
Jinyan Lv ◽  
Binyuan Zhuang ◽  
Xiaoli Chen ◽  
Lifeng Xue ◽  
Degao Li
2016 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuel Perea ◽  
Lourdes Giner ◽  
Ana Marcet ◽  
Pablo Gomez

AbstractA number of experiments have shown that, in skilled adult readers, a small increase in interletter spacing speeds up the process of visual word recognition relative to the default settings (i.e., judge faster than judge). The goal of the present experiment was to examine whether this effect can be generalized to a more ecological scenario: text reading. Each participant read two stories (367 words each) taken from a standardized reading test. The stories were presented with the standard interletter spacing or with a small increase in interletter spacing (+1.2 points to default) in a within-subject design. An eyetracker was used to register the participants’ eye movements. Comprehension scores were also examined. Results showed that, on average, fixation durations were shorter while reading the text with extra spacing than while reading the text with the default settings (237 vs. 245 ms, respectively; η2 =. 41, p = .01). However, the number of fixations (while nonsignificant) was slightly higher in the text with extra spacing than in the text with the default spacing, and cancelled out the effect of interletter spacing in total reading times (F < 1). Comprehension scores were similar in the two spacing conditions (F < 1). Thus, at least for skilled adult readers, interletter spacing does not seem to play a consistently facilitative role during text reading.


2002 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 525-542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Mayall

Presenting words in MiXeD cAsE has previously been shown to disrupt naming performance of adult readers. This effect is greater on nonwords than it is on real words. There have been two main accounts of this interaction. First, case mixing may disrupt naming via non-lexical spelling-to-sound correspondences to a greater extent than it disrupts lexical naming. Alternatively, stored lexical knowledge of words may feed back to a visual analysis level during processing of a visually presented word, helping known words to overcome the visual disruption caused by case mixing. In the present study, when young children (aged 6 and 8 years) were tested, case mixing did not disrupt nonword naming more than word naming. However, slightly older children (aged 9 years) demonstrated the same pattern of performance as adults. These results support the view that top-down lexical information can aid overcoming visual disruption to words, and that beginning readers have not developed the stored word knowledge necessary to allow this. In addition, a greater case-mixing effect on high-frequency words for the youngest age group (6-year-olds) suggests that their word recognition may be based more on wholistic visual features than is that of older children.


2020 ◽  
pp. 002383092097131
Author(s):  
Anurag Rimzhim ◽  
Avantika Johri ◽  
Damian G. Kelty-Stephen ◽  
Carol A. Fowler

We tested for transposition effects (TEs) in Hindi (a Modern Indo-Aryan language) using unprimed lexical decision. TEs are defined as less accurate and slower responses to transposed-nonwords (e.g., ‹psate›, formed from base-word ‹paste›) than corresponding replaced-nonwords (e.g., ‹pzute›). In Hindi’s orthography, letters map transparently to phonemes (except schwa), but the letters are arranged into “akshars,” (‹[Cn]V›) which encode open syllables. This formal characteristic makes Hindi’s orthography typologically “aksharic.” We used TEs to determine whether the orthography’s typological units, letters and akshars, are also functional units for readers. We conducted three visual word recognition experiments with adult readers whose native language was Hindi. In Experiment 1, we found TEs for consonant (‹C›) and matra (‹M›, a vowel diacritic) letters, using different stimulus sets for each type of transposition. In the next two experiments, we used the same base words to form all of the transposed and replaced items. In Experiment 2, we replicated the findings of Experiment 1 in a different stimulus set; additionally, we found TEs for transpositions between a ‹C› letter and a ‹CM› akshar. In Experiment 3, we replicated results of the first two experiments by finding TEs for both consonants and matras in another stimulus set; additionally, we found similar TEs for ‹CM› akshars. These results show that ‹C› and ‹M› letters are functional units for Hindi readers; the transposition results for ‹CM› akshars are tentative. TEs for letters show that the aksharic grouping of letters does not prevent readers from decoding the constituent letters of akshars. Hindi is read alphabetically.


2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-338
Author(s):  
Ambre Denis-Noël ◽  
Chotiga Pattamadilok ◽  
Éric Castet ◽  
Pascale Colé

1996 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-78 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenyatta O. Rivers ◽  
Linda J. Lombardino ◽  
Cynthia K. Thompson

The effects of training in letter-sound correspondences and phonemic decoding (segmenting and blending skills) on three kindergartners' word recognition abilities were examined using a single-subject multiple-baseline design across behaviors and subjects. Whereas CVC pseudowords were trained, generalization to untrained CVC pseudowords, untrained CVC real words, untrained CV and VC pseudowords, and untrained CV and VC real words were assessed. Generalization occurred to all of the untrained constructions for two of the three subjects. The third subject did not show the same degree of generalization to VC pseudowords and real words; however, after three training sessions, this subject read all VC constructions with 100% accuracy. Findings are consistent with group training studies that have shown the benefits of decoding training on word recognition and spelling skills and with studies that have demonstrated the effects of generalization to less complex structures when more complex structures are trained.


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.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document