The Effects of Orthographic Neighborhood Size and the Influence of Individual Differences in Linguistic Skills During the Recognition of Chinese Words

There are still inconsistencies as to whether frequency and orthographic neighborhood size affect the reading and recognition of Chinese words. In addition, research on Chinese reading still adheres to the view that “all skilled readers read in the same way” and pays little attention to the influence of individual differences in linguistic skills on word recognition. In this research, we studied the recognition of Chinese two-character words in a lexical decision task (LDT) by manipulating neighborhood size and word frequency and controlling the frequency of the initial constituent character. Individual differences in linguistic skills were assessed through tests of spelling and reading comprehension. The results showed that: (1) A larger orthographic neighborhood size of the initial character had a facilitative effect on Chinese word recognition. The orthographic neighborhood size effect is modulated by word frequency, but this modulation effect was not stable. (2) Spelling and reading comprehension skills are good indicators to assess individual differences in Chinese linguistic skills, and they are significantly correlated. (3) Individual differences in linguistic skills influence the neighborhood size effect, which is moderated by word frequency.

Attentional modulation of orthographic neighborhood effects during reading: Evidence from event-related brain potentials in a psychological refractory period paradigm

It is often assumed that word reading proceeds automatically. Here, we tested this assumption by recording event-related potentials during a psychological refractory period (PRP) paradigm, requiring lexical decisions about written words. Specifically, we selected words differing in their orthographic neighborhood size – the number of words that can be obtained from a target by exchanging a single letter – and investigated how influences of this variable depend on the availability of central attention. As expected, when attentional resources for lexical decisions were unconstrained, words with many orthographic neighbors elicited larger N400 amplitudes than those with few neighbors. However, under conditions of high temporal overlap with a high priority primary task, the N400 effect disappeared. This finding indicates strong attentional influences on the incidental processing of orthographic neighbors during word reading, providing novel evidence against the automaticity of processes involved in word reading. Furthermore, in conjunction with the observation of an underadditive interaction between stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) and orthographic neighborhood size in lexical decision performance, commonly taken to indicate automaticity, our results raise issues concerning the standard logic of cognitive slack in the PRP paradigm.