Orthographic transparency and grapheme–phoneme conversion: An ERP study in Arabic and French readers

Numerous behavioral studies have suggested that orthographic transparency of a language is liable to influence the use of grapheme-phoneme conversion during reading. In order to test this hypothesis, the effect of orthographic transparency on event-related potentials was assessed by comparing French to Arab readers. Indeed, French language, contrary to Arabic one, was expected to favor the use of grapheme-phoneme rules during reading. Our results demonstrated that the N320, a component implicated in phonologic transcription, was modulated by orthographic transparency. Indeed, during reading in their mother tongue, only French subjects clearly elicited a N320. Moreover, the comparisons between activations elicited by Arabic words in Arab subjects and French monolingual people also confirm that the N170 component represents an important orthographic stage. The implications of these results on bilinguism and visual word recognition models are discussed.