Does viotin activate violin more than viocin? On the use of visual cues during visual-word recognition.

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.

[1]  Colin J Davis,et al.  The spatial coding model of visual word identification. , 2010, Psychological review.

[2]  J. Grainger,et al.  Letter perception: from pixels to pandemonium , 2008, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[3]  M. Lavidor.  Whole‐word shape effect in dyslexia , 2011 .

[4]  Linnea C. Ehri,et al.  Phases of development in learning to read words by sight , 1995 .

[5]  Glyn W. Humphreys,et al.  CASE MIXING AND THE TASK-SENSITIVE DISRUPTION OF LEXICAL PROCESSING , 1996 .

[6]  M. Coltheart,et al.  The cognitive neuropsychology of language , 1987 .

[7]  T. Lachmann,et al.  Different letter-processing strategies in diagnostic subgroups of developmental dyslexia , 2008, Cognitive neuropsychology.

[8]  Thomas Lachmann,et al.  Negative congruence effects in letter and pseudo-letter recognition: the role of similarity and response conflict , 2004, Cognitive Processing.

[9]  K R Paap,et al.  Word shape's in poor shape for the race to the lexicon. , 1984, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[10]  David Howard.  Reading without letters , 1987 .

[11]  G. Thompson,et al.  The long learning route to abstract letter units , 2009, Cognitive neuropsychology.

[12]  Manuel Perea,et al.  Does “whole-word shape” play a role in visual word recognition? , 2002, Perception & psychophysics.

[13]  Kenneth I Forster,et al.  DMDX: A Windows display program with millisecond accuracy , 2003, Behavior research methods, instruments, & computers : a journal of the Psychonomic Society, Inc.

[14]  P. Worden,et al.  Young Children's Acquisition of Alphabet Knowledge , 1990 .

[15]  Roger Ratcliff,et al.  A diffusion model account of the lexical decision task. , 2004, Psychological review.

[16]  Lyndsey Nickels,et al.  Context effects on orthographic learning of regular and irregular words. , 2011, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[17]  J. Beech,et al.  It's what's on the outside that matters: an advantage for external features in children's word recognition. , 2006, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[18]  D. Share.  Orthographic learning at a glance: on the time course and developmental onset of self-teaching. , 2004, Journal of experimental child psychology.

[19]  M. Sigman,et al.  The neural code for written words: a proposal , 2005, Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

[20]  N. Friedmann,et al.  Letter Position Dyslexia in Arabic: From Form to Position , 2012, Behavioural neurology.

[21]  G. Stone,et al.  Strategic control of processing in word recognition. , 1993, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[22]  Reem Abu Mallouh,et al.  Early access to abstract representations in developing readers: evidence from masked priming. , 2013, Developmental science.

[23]  Montserrat Comesaña,et al.  Does the advantage of the upper part of words occur at the lexical level? , 2012, Memory & cognition.

[24]  G. C. Orden,et al.  Interdependence of form and function in cognitive systems explains perception of printed words. , 1994, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[25]  T. Lachmann,et al.  Paradoxical Enhancement of Letter Recognition in Developmental Dyslexia , 2007, Developmental neuropsychology.

[26]  P. Gomez,et al.  The effects of inter-letter spacing in visual-word recognition: Evidence with young normal readers and developmental dyslexics , 2012 .

[27]  J. Gabrieli.  Dyslexia: A New Synergy Between Education and Cognitive Neuroscience , 2009, Science.

[28]  A Pollatsek,et al.  On the use of counterbalanced designs in cognitive research: a suggestion for a better and more powerful analysis. , 1995, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[29]  J. Bowers,et al.  Orthographic, phonological, and articulatory contributions to masked letter and word priming. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[30]  G. McConkie,et al.  Integrating information across eye movements , 1980, Cognitive Psychology.

[31]  K. Forster,et al.  REPETITION PRIMING AND FREQUENCY ATTENUATION IN LEXICAL ACCESS , 1984 .

[32]  C. Davis,et al.  BuscaPalabras: A program for deriving orthographic and phonological neighborhood statistics and other psycholinguistic indices in Spanish , 2005, Behavior research methods.

[33]  Colin J. Davis,et al.  The self-organising lexical acquisition and recognition (SOLAR) model of visual word recognition. , 2001 .

[34]  Jonathan Grainger,et al.  Cracking the orthographic code: An introduction , 2008 .

[35]  J B Poline,et al.  Letter Binding and Invariant Recognition of Masked Words , 2004, Psychological science.

[36]  Silvia Corral,et al.  LEXIN: A lexical database from Spanish kindergarten and first-grade readers , 2009, Behavior research methods.

[37]  Graciela Chichilnisky,et al.  On Strategic Control , 1993 .