Early markers of lexical stress in visual word recognition

Many studies that have examined reading at the single-word level have been restricted to the processing of monosyllabic stimuli, and, as a result, lexical stress has not been widely investigated. In the experiments reported here, we used disyllabic words and nonwords to investigate the processing of lexical stress during visual word recognition. In Experiments 1 and 2, we found an effect of stress typicality in naming and lexical decision. Typically stressed words (trochaic nouns and iambic verbs) elicited fewer errors than atypically stressed words (iambic nouns and trochaic verbs). In Experiment 3, we carried out an analysis of 340 word endings and found clear orthographic correlates of both grammatical category and lexical stress in word endings. In Experiment 4, we demonstrated that readers are sensitive to these cues in their processing of nonwords during two tasks: sentence construction and stress assignment. We discuss the implications of these findings with regard to psycholinguistic models of single-word reading.

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Does Viotin Activate Violin More Than Viocin?

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000223 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 61 (1) ◽

pp. 23-29 ◽

Cited By ~ 15

Author(s):

Manuel Perea ◽

Victoria Panadero

Keyword(s):

Word Recognition ◽

Visual Word Recognition ◽

Developmental Dyslexia ◽

Computational Models ◽

Error Rates ◽

Visual Word ◽

Base Word ◽

Similar Response ◽

Skilled Readers ◽

Young Readers

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.

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The Sound of Enemies and Friends in the Neighborhood

Experimental Psychology (formerly Zeitschrift für Experimentelle Psychologie) ◽

10.1027/1618-3169/a000113 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 58 (6) ◽

pp. 454-463 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Diane Pecher ◽

Inge Boot ◽

Saskia van Dantzig ◽

Carol J. Madden ◽

David E. Huber ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Word Recognition ◽

Visual Word Recognition ◽

Neighborhood Effects ◽

Classification Performance ◽

Visual Word ◽

Orthographic Neighborhood ◽

Semantic Classification ◽

Semantic Class ◽

Orthographic Neighbors ◽

Target Words

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.

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