SLAT6827LING2020 Linguistics

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SLAT6827/LING2020 Linguistics Literacy L2
Literacy Semester 2, 2004

• Week 3
• The psycholinguistics of reading
• the view from the bottom

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Reading as skilled information processing

• Identifying the processes that enable us to see
  word meanings in printed and written symbols and
  integrate these meanings into the ideas presented
  in sentences

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Assumptions of the information processingapproach
to reading

• Reading is a complex skill comprised of component
  subskills
• Reading can be examined as a problem-solving
  activity
• Laboratory approach to reading

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SIMPLE MODEL OF READING

• Letter perception
• Word recognition
• Word integration (idea formation)
• Construction of a mental model

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The laboratory approach to studying reading

• controls the presentation conditions so that each
  of the subskills can be studied in the absence of
  the influence of other subskills.
• observes the effect of known changes in the
  materials that are to be read, e.g., frequency.

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Information and knowledge

• Information is contained in the stimulus and is
  available to us for gathering, while knowledge is
  information that has been gathered over time and
  can guide the collection of future information.

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Types of knowledge affecting the collection of
information in reading

• Shape of orthography
• Possible letter combinations
• Frequency of letter combinations
• Immediate context
• Knowledge of the world

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Reading has been described as a guessing game

• The captain told the mate to drop
• the an

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• ...anchovies?

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• ...anchor?

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The processing of information

• An information process is a cognitive action that
  transforms information from one form to another.

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How do we recognise and distinguish letters?

• Theories of pattern recognition
• Template matching
• Feature detection

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Template matching

• Patterns are recognized on the basis of
  similarity to stored patterns.
• K K K k k k K k

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Can you recognise this template?

• This is upside down but you can still read it.

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Feature detection

• Patterns are composed of features. Letters
  consist
• of combinations of features.
• Physiological evidence for signal detectors

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Visual search task (Neisser, 1964)

• Task Find target letter Z
• Z is easier to detect when embedded in string of
  dissimilar letters
• O Z C B
• than in a string of similar letters
• X Y Z M
• due to activation of letters with similar
  features, here vertical and slanted lines.

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Serial or parallel processing?

• Word superiority effect is strong evidence that
  the letters that make up a word are processed in
  parallel.
• Letters in words are often identified faster than
  letters presented alone.
• G easier to discriminate from D when
  presented in a word, e.g. WAGE, than alone.

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Accessing the mental lexicon Phonological
access model

• Written word
• Visual analysis
• Letter-to-sound conversion
• Auditory Mental Lexicon
• Output

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Sound-based word encoding

• Strings of letters must be recoded as words
• Evidence for recoding from visual to speech-based
  code.
• Pseudohomophone effect is evidence for activation
  of phonological form brain
  gtgtgt brane
• bird gtgtgt burd

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Pseudohomophones

• Pseudohomophones have longer decision times than
  other strings that do not form words, suggesting
  we need to transform each visual pattern into its
  phonological form.
• Caveat simple phonological route would result in
  pseudohomophones being accepted as words. Thus a
  spelling check is also needed.

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Spelling-to-sound correspondence rules

• Grapheme-phoneme mappings
• Regular mappings, like Japanese or Finnish
• Irregular mappings, like English

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Regular grapheme-phoneme mappings

• Languages like Japanese
• ???? marubatsu 0s and Xs
• ???? daikon radish
• ?? inu dog

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Irregular grapheme-phoneme mappings

• Languages like English
• Same grapheme but different phonemes HAVE and
  GAVE
• Different graphemes but same phonemes
• BOAT and HOE
• WISHED and MISHAP
• BEAUTY, CLEAR, CREATE, DEAL, GREAT, HEARD,
  LIKEABLE, REACT, SÉANCE

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Accessing the mental lexicon Direct access via
graphemes

• Written word
• Visual analysis
• Visual Mental Lexicon
• Output

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Direct access via graphemes

• Irregularity of phoneme-grapheme mapping suggests
  that direct access to the mental lexicon via
  graphemes is possible.

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Direct access via graphemes

• Words that are spelled the same, but have
  different pronunciation and meanings READ,
  INVALID, TEAR
• gtgt Can be handled by direct access model which
  allows the recognition of meaning prior to the
  assignment of pronunciation.
• Wipe the tear from your eye.
• Mend the tear in your jacket.

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Experimental evidence for direct access

• Word decision shadowing task (Kleiman, 1975)
• Subjects are presented with pairs of words in
  three different conditions and are asked to judge
  whether
• The pair differs by one letter (graphemic
  condition)
• The pair rhymes (phonemic condition)
• The pair has the same meaning (synonomy
  condition)
• At the same time they have to perform a shadowing
  task (listening to and then repeating digits)

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Experimental evidence for direct access

• (Kleiman, 1975)
• 
  Decision time
• Type of
  No shadow Shadow
• Decision True responses False responses
  (msec) (msec)
• Graphemic HEARD BEARD GRACE PRICE
  970 1,095
• Phonemic TICKLE PICKLE LEMON DEMON
  1,137 1,509
• Synonym MOURN GRIEVE DEPART COUPLE 1,118
  1,238
• gtgt Shadowing most disruptive for Phonemic task,
  much less disruptive for Graphemic or Synonym
  task, the latter requiring access to the mental
  lexicon.

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Phonological coding

• Phonological coding may not be necessary to
  lexical access, but it is very common.
• The effects of phonological codes are widely
  evident
• Priming
• Peripheral processing
• Eye movement

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Priming

• The identification of a target word is enhanced
  (primed) by a preceding homophone
• e.g. SIGHED primes SIDE

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Peripheral processing

• Words printed to one side of a target word
  inhibit lexical decisions when the spoken form is
  related to the target.
• Target Distractor word
• PAIN VANE
• Note that the peripheral word is not reportable

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Eye movements

• Contingent display studies allow words to be
  changed immediately prior to reading. Target
  words that relate to the replacement words are
  manipulated. Shorter eye fixations occur when the
  prior word was a homophone.
• The generous man gave every sent to charity
• sent replaced e.g., with sent or rack. When cent
  appears the fixation duration is shorter.

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Regularise the sound-spelling correspondences in
English?

• More symbols would be required to match the
  number of phonemes
• Homographs would increase (FOR/FOUR/FORE)
• Morphological information would be lost
  (INHIBIT/INHIBITION)
• Word recognition would be more difficult without
  redundancies in spelling (EIGHT/ATE)

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Skilled information processing and attention

• Processes that are automatic do not require
  attention.
• Processes that require attention are more
  resource demanding.

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Processes that require attention are more
resource demanding.

• Identifying propositional structure of text.
• Development of mental model of text.
• Concurrent tasks make it difficult to decide if
  sentences like the following are acceptable
• PIZZAS HAVE BEEN EATING JERRY

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Processes that are automatic require less
attention.

• Practiced letter recognition
• Practiced word recognition
• Evidence from Stroop effect
• Automatic lexical access (Swinney, 1979)

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The Stroop effect

• SMALL LARGE
• SMALL LARGE

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Automatic lexical access (Swinney, 1979)

• The man was not surprised when he found several
  spiders, roaches and other bugs in the room...
• Lexical decision task
• 
  prime
• bug Context congruent ant
  890 msec
• Context incongruent spy 910
  msec
• ant spy Unrelated
  sky 960 msec

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The role of bottom-up processes in ESL reading

• Nassaji, H. Geva, E. (1999). The contribution
  of phonological and orthographic processing
  skills to adult ESL reading Evidence from native
  speakers of Farsi. Applied Psycholinguistics 20,
  2 , 241
• The study examined the effect of lower level
  processing skills on basic ESL reading skills.

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The study
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The study

• Dependent measures
• Reading comprehension
• Silent reading rate
• Single word recognition

Independent measures Phonological processing
skill Orthographic processing skill Syntactic
processing skill Semantic processing
skill Working memory Rapid automatization naming
task (RAN)
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Nassaji Geva (1999) Results

• Efficient lower level phonological and,
  particularly, orthographic processing skills, as
  well as higher level semantic and syntactic skill
  contribute to ESL reading.
• Efficiency in lower level processes make a unique
  contribution to ESL reading comprehension.
• The complex nature of reading connected text
  places a premium on lower level visual and word
  identification processes.

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Discussion Activity (1)

• Words that are spelled and pronounced the same
  but have different meaningsLIGHT, SAW, MINT pose
  difficulty for both phonological route and direct
  access models.
• Why?

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Discussion Activity (2)

• Healey, 1976 t-crossing experiment.

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Discussion Activity (2)

• Healey (1976) t-crossing experiment.