EXPRESS: The letter position coding mechanism of second language words during sentence reading: Evidence from eye movements

We conducted three eye movement experiments to investigate the mechanism for coding letter positions in a person’s second language during sentence reading; we also examined the role of morphology in this process with more rigorous manipulation. Given that readers not only obtain information from currently fixated words (i.e., the foveal area) but also from upcoming words (i.e., the parafoveal area) to guide their reading, we examined both when the targets were fixated (Exp. 1) and when the targets were seen parafoveally (Exp. 2 and Exp. 3). First, we found the classic transposed letter (TL) effect in Exp. 1, but not in Exp. 2 or Exp. 3. This implies that flexible letter position coding exists during sentence reading. However, this was limited to words located in the foveal area, suggesting that L2 readers whose L2 proficiency is not as high as skilled native readers are not able to extract and utilize the parafoveal letter identity and position information of a word, whether the word length is long (Exp. 2) or short (Exp. 3). Second, we found morphological information to influence the magnitude of the TL effect in Exp. 1. These results provide new eye movement evidence for the flexibility of L2 letter position coding during sentence reading, as well as the interactions between the different internal representations of words in this process. Altogether, this is helpful for understanding L2 sentence reading and visual word recognition. Thus, future L2 reading frameworks should integrate word recognition and eye movement control models.

Which Factors Modulate Letter Position Coding in Pre-literate Children?

One of the central landmarks of learning to read is the emergence of orthographic processing (i.e., the encoding of letter identity and letter order): it constitutes the necessary link between the low-level stages of visual processing and the higher-level processing of words. Regarding the processing of letter position, many experiments have shown worse performance in various tasks for the transposed-letter pair judge-JUDGE than for the orthographic control jupte-JUDGE. Importantly, 4-y.o. pre-literate children also show letter transposition effects in a same-different task: TZ-ZT is more error-prone than TZ-PH. Here, we examined whether this effect with pre-literate children is related to the cognitive and linguistic skills required to learn to read. Specifically, we examined the relation of the transposed-letter in a same-different task with the scores of these children in phonological, alphabetic and metalinguistic awareness, linguistic skills, and basic cognitive processes. To that end, we used a standardized battery to assess the abilities related with early reading acquisition. Results showed that the size of the transposed-letter effect in pre-literate children was strongly associated with the sub-test on basic cognitive processes (i.e., memory and perception) but not with the other sub-tests. Importantly, identifying children who may need a pre-literacy intervention is crucial to minimize eventual reading difficulties. We discuss how this marker can be used as a tool to anticipate reading difficulties in beginning readers.

The Effect of Colors and Positional Noise on Reading Performance with Non-words-Part 2

BACKGROUND: Reading can be described as a complex cognitive process of decrypting signs to create meaning. Eventually, it is a way of language achievement, communication, and sharing of information and ideas. Changing lighting and color are known to improve visual comfort and the perceptual difficulties that affect reading for those with poor vision. AIM: The main objectives of the current study were to investigate the effect of changing the wavelengths and color with different levels of positional noise on reading performance with non-word for subjects with best-corrected distant visual acuity (BCVA) equal or better than 6/6. METHODOLOGY: In a cross-section interventional study, 20 English speakers were asked to read non-words presented in a printed format. The stimuli were black print words in a horizontal arrangement on a matte white card. They were degraded using positional noise produced by random vertical displacements of the letter position below or above the horizontal line on three levels. RESULTS: Introducing positional noise affected real and non-words recognition differently. The detrimental effects of positional noise with non-words on reading rate were not influenced by changes in wavelengths and color. The long-wavelength reading rate resulted in the lowest performance compared with other wavelengths with all levels of noise. CONCLUSION: Reading performance is affected by changes in the levels of positional noise. However, the reading rate is not affected by changes in wavelength and color with non-words. The long-wavelength reading rate resulted in the lowest performance compared with other wavelengths and color with all levels of noise.

EXPRESS: Are better young readers more likely to confuse their mother with their mohter?

One of the most replicated effects in the contemporary word recognition literature is the transposed-letter effect (TL-effect): pseudowords created by the transposition of two letters (e.g., MOHTER) are often misread as the real word. This effect ruled out those accounts that assume that letter position is encoded accurately and led to more flexible coding schemes. Here, we examined whether reading skill modulates this effect. The relationship between reading skill and the TL-effect magnitude is a contentious issue both empirically and theoretically. The present lexical decision experiment was designed to shed some light on the relationship between reading skill and the TL-effect magnitude with a large sample of Grade 6 children. To that end, we conducted both multiple regression and path analyses. Results showed that a specific aspect of reading skills (pseudoword reading) negatively correlates with the TL-effect's magnitude in the error data (i.e., MOHTER is less wordlike for better readers). This finding highlights the need for a comprehensive visual word recognition model that includes individual variability and the multidimensional character of reading in school-age children.

Do Grading Gray Stimuli Help to Encode Letter Position?

Numerous experiments in the past decades recurrently showed that a transposed-letter pseudoword (e.g., JUGDE) is much more wordlike than a replacement-letter control (e.g., JUPTE). Critically, there is an ongoing debate as to whether this effect arises at a perceptual level (e.g., perceptual uncertainty at assigning letter position of an array of visual objects) or at an abstract language-specific level (e.g., via a level of “open bigrams” between the letter and word levels). Here, we designed an experiment to test the limits of perceptual accounts of letter position coding. The stimuli in a lexical decision task were presented either with a homogeneous letter intensity or with a graded gray intensity, which indicated an unambiguous letter order. The pseudowords were either transposed-letter pseudowords or replaced-letter pseudowords (e.g., jugde vs. jupte). The results showed much longer response times and substantially more errors in the transposed-letter pseudowords than in the replacement-letter pseudowords, regardless of visual format. These findings favor the idea that language-specific orthographic element factors play an essential role when encoding letter position during word recognition.

The Effect of Color and Positional Noise on Reading Performance in Human Vision

BACKGROUND: Reading can be described as a complex cognitive process of decrypting signs to create meaning. Eventually, it is a way of language achievement, communication, and sharing information and ideas. Changing lighting and color are known to improve visual comfort and the perceptual difficulties that affect reading for those with poor vision. AIM: This study aims to investigate the effect of changing the wavelengths and different levels of positional noise on reading performance for participants with best-corrected distant visual acuity (BCVA) of 6/6 or better. METHODOLOGY: Twenty English speakers with BCVA 6/6 or better were asked to read words presented in a printed format. The stimuli were black print words in a horizontal arrangement on matte white card. They were degraded using positional noise produced by random vertical displacements of the letter position below or above the horizontal line on three levels. RESULTS: Introducing positional noise affected word recognition differently with different wavelengths. The role of short wavelength in enhancing orthographic reading and word recognition is clear – they reduce the effects of positional noise. The error rate and duration time have different effects with different wavelengths, even when positional noise is introduced. CONCLUSION: The reading rate is not affected by changing the wavelength of the light. However, the mean differences in wpm were affected by changing the wavelengths. Also, introducing positional noise affects word recognition differently with different wavelengths.

What, Where, When and How of Visual Word Recognition: A Bibliometrics Review

The neural/mental operations involved in the process of visual word recognition (VWR) are fundamental for the efficient comprehension of written/printed words during reading. The present study used CiteSpace, a visual analysis software, to identify the intellectual landscape where VWR has been reviewed in the past decade. Thus, synthesized co-citation networks were analyzed to explore and discuss the main questions raised in the VWR literature: the research fronts and the emerging trends of research on this topic. Our results showed that the main questions addressed in VWR studies during the last decade have been focused on four main aspects related to “what,” “where,” “when,” and “how” of VWR; to be specific, the different types of representations assessed during VWR (“what”), the locations and the timing of the brain activity involved in VWR (“where” and “when”), and the interactivity among different representations during processing (“how”). Among the revised studies, letter position coding was found to be the main topic of interest, possibly reflecting the critical role of this process. Furthermore, the evidence found in these studies consistently supported that VWR implies access to phonological, semantic, and morphological representations, which interact and modulate the processing of written words, particularly during early stages. Altogether, our findings showed the evolution in VWR literature regarding the different cognitive and neural operations involved in this process, highlighting the growing interest over the last decade toward the top-down way that mental representations interact.