scholarly journals Eye Movement Measures of Within-Language and Cross-Language Activation During Reading in Monolingual and Bilingual Children and Adults: A Focus on Neighborhood Density Effects

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronica Whitford ◽  
Marc F. Joanisse
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Word Recognition ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Neighborhood Density ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Orthographic Neighborhood ◽  
Density Effects ◽  
Orthographic Neighborhood Density ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
L1 And L2

We used eye movement measures of first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) paragraph reading to investigate how the activation of multiple lexical candidates, both within and across languages, influences visual word recognition in four different age and language groups: (1) monolingual children; (2) monolingual young adults; (3) bilingual children; and (4) bilingual young adults. More specifically, we focused on within-language and cross-language orthographic neighborhood density effects, while controlling for the potentially confounding effects of orthographic neighborhood frequency. We found facilitatory within-language orthographic neighborhood density effects (i.e., words were easier to process when they had many vs. few orthographic neighbors, evidenced by shorter fixation durations) across the L1 and L2, with larger effects in children vs. adults (especially the bilingual ones) during L1 reading. Similarly, we found facilitatory cross-language neighborhood density effects across the L1 and L2, with no modulatory influence of age or language group. Taken together, our findings suggest that word recognition benefits from the simultaneous activation of visually similar word forms during naturalistic reading, with some evidence of larger effects in children and particularly those whose words may have differentially lower baseline activation levels and/or weaker links between word-related information due to divided language exposure: bilinguals.

Children Like Dense Neighborhoods: Orthographic Neighborhood Density Effects in Novel Readers

2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Andoni Duñabeitia ◽  
Eduardo Vidal-Abarca
Keyword(s):  
Neighborhood Effects ◽  
Neighborhood Density ◽  
Beginning Readers ◽  
Response Latencies ◽  
Orthographic Neighborhood ◽  
Developmental Models ◽  
Lexical Route ◽  
Density Effects ◽  
Orthographic Neighborhood Density ◽  
Orthographic Neighbors

Previous evidence with English beginning readers suggests that some orthographic effects, such as the orthographic neighborhood density effects, could be stronger for children than for adults. Particularly, children respond more accurately to words with many orthographic neighbors than to words with few neighbors. The magnitude of the effects for children is much higher than for adults, and some researchers have proposed that these effects could be progressively modulated according to reading expertise. The present paper explores in depth how children from 1stto 6thgrade perform a lexical decision with words that are from dense or sparse orthographic neighborhoods, attending not only to accuracy measures, but also to response latencies, through a computer-controlled task. Our results reveal that children (like adults) show clear neighborhood density effects, and that these effects do not seem to depend on reading expertise. Contrarily to previous claims, the present work shows that orthographic neighborhood effects are not progressively modulated by reading skill. Further, these data strongly support the idea of a general language-independent preference for using the lexical route instead of grapheme-to-phoneme conversions, even in beginning readers. The implications of these results for developmental models in reading and for models in visual word recognition and orthographic encoding are discussed.

Vowel development in young Mandarin-English bilingual children

Phonetica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Yang
Keyword(s):  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Vowel Duration ◽  
Formant Frequency ◽  
High Group ◽  
English Bilingual ◽  
English Vowels ◽  
Vowel Systems ◽  
Phonetic Features ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
L1 And L2

Abstract This study examined the development of vowel categories in young Mandarin -English bilingual children. The participants included 35 children aged between 3 and 4 years old (15 Mandarin-English bilinguals, six English monolinguals, and 14 Mandarin monolinguals). The bilingual children were divided into two groups: one group had a shorter duration (<1 year) of intensive immersion in English (Bi-low group) and one group had a longer duration (>1 year) of intensive immersion in English (Bi-high group). The participants were recorded producing one list of Mandarin words containing the vowels /a, i, u, y, ɤ/ and/or one list of English words containing the vowels /i, ɪ, e, ɛ, æ, u, ʊ, o, ɑ, ʌ/. Formant frequency values were extracted at five equidistant time locations (the 20–35–50–65–80% point) over the course of vowel duration. Cross-language and within-language comparisons were conducted on the midpoint formant values and formant trajectories. The results showed that children in the Bi-low group produced their English vowels into clusters and showed positional deviations from the monolingual targets. However, they maintained the phonetic features of their native vowel sounds well and mainly used an assimilatory process to organize the vowel systems. Children in the Bi-high group separated their English vowels well. They used both assimilatory and dissimilatory processes to construct and refine the two vowel systems. These bilingual children approximated monolingual English children to a better extent than the children in the Bi-low group. However, when compared to the monolingual peers, they demonstrated observable deviations in both L1 and L2.

scholarly journals The home language environment of monolingual and bilingual children and their language proficiency

2009 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANNA F. SCHEELE ◽  
PAUL P. M. LESEMAN ◽  
AZIZA Y. MAYO
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Home Language ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Language Environment ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
L1 And L2 ◽  
Dutch Children

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the relationships between home language learning activities and vocabulary in a sample of monolingual native Dutch (n= 58) and bilingual immigrant Moroccan–Dutch (n= 46) and Turkish–Dutch (n= 55) 3-year-olds, speaking Tarifit-Berber, a nonscripted language, and Turkish as their first language (L1), respectively. Despite equal domain general cognitive abilities, Dutch children scored higher than the bilingual children on a L1 vocabulary test, and Moroccan–Dutch children had higher second language (L2) vocabulary skills compared to Turkish–Dutch children. Multigroup analyses revealed strong impact on both L1 and L2 skills of language specific input in literate and oral activities. Finally, indications were found of positive cross-language transfer from L1 to L2 as well as competition between L1 and L2 input.

scholarly journals Reading Shakespeare sonnets: Combining quantitative narrative analysis and predictive modeling - an eye tracking study

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuwei Xue ◽  
Jana Lüdtke ◽  
Teresa Sylvester ◽  
Arthur M. Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Eye Movement ◽  
Predictive Modeling ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Neighborhood Density ◽  
Movement Behavior ◽  
Total Reading Time ◽  
Poetry Reading ◽  
Orthographic Neighborhood Density ◽  
Poetic Texts ◽  
Literary Materials

As a part of a larger interdisciplinary project on Shakespeare sonnets’ reception (Jacobs et al., 2017; Xue et al., 2017), the present study analyzed the eye movement behavior of participants reading three of the 154 sonnets as a function of seven lexical features extracted via Quantitative Narrative Analysis (QNA). Using a machine learning- based predictive modeling approach five ‘surface’ features (word length, orthographic neighborhood density, word frequency, orthographic dissimilarity and sonority score) were detected as important predictors of total reading time and fixation probability in poetry reading. The fact that one phonological feature, i.e., sonority score, also played a role is in line with current theorizing on poetry reading. Our approach opens new ways for future eye movement research on reading poetic texts and other complex literary materials (cf. Jacobs, 2015c).

An even more universal model of reading: Various effects of orthography on dyslexias

2012 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 285-286
Author(s):  
Naama Friedmann ◽  
Aviah Gvion
Keyword(s):  
Letter Position ◽  
Neighborhood Density ◽  
Universal Model ◽  
Orthographic Neighborhood ◽  
Orthographic Neighborhood Density ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe properties of a specific orthography dictate the way people read it. We bring considerations from dyslexia to suggest that the claim can be extended further. First, the effect of orthographic neighborhood density can be extended beyond letter-position encoding and beyond the orthographic lexicon. Second, Hebrew and Arabic differ with respect to letter forms, and hence, in letter-position encoding.

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