Language and Reading 1

• Why does a meaningless pattern convey meaning in word recognition?

  • It associates visual patterns with meanings.
  • This is achieved by creating a mental lexicon.
• What is one outcome of studying visual word recognition?

  Learning about common methods used to study visual word recognition

  
• What is another outcome of studying visual word recognition?

  Gaining knowledge of factors that influence word recognition
• What is a third outcome of studying visual word recognition?

  Learning about models of word recognition
• How are models of word recognition related to experimental evidence?

  They help explain how word recognition occurs based on research findings

  
• What is an example of a factor that can make word recognition easy or difficult?

  Word frequency
• What method is used to measure how long people look at a word when reading?

  Eye tracking
• What does the lexical decision task measure?

  How long people take to indicate if a string of letters is a word
• What is the definition of priming in word recognition?

  Exposure to one stimulus influences response to a subsequent, related stimulus
• What does the naming task measure in word recognition studies?

  How long people take to start saying a word
• What is one factor that affects word recognition?

  Word frequency
• How do commonly used words compare to infrequent words in recognition?

  Commonly used words are recognized more easily than infrequent words
• How does eye tracking help in studying word recognition?

  It measures how long people look at words presented in context
• How do predictable words compare to those in neutral or misleading contexts in recognition?

  Predictable words are recognized more easily than those in neutral or misleading contexts

  
• What was the task used by Tulving and Gold (1963) to study word recognition?

  Participants read an incomplete sentence and attempted to recognize a single word
• What are neighbourhood effects in word recognition?

  Word identification can be sped up when similar words exist in the language
• What is the phonological neighbourhood in word recognition?

  The number of words formed by changing one phoneme of a word
• What is Morton’s Logogen model of word recognition?

  • Logogens are "word detectors."
  • Each logogen has an activation threshold that must be met to fire.

  
• How does word frequency affect the logogen model?

  Higher frequency words have a lower threshold for firing
• How does the cognitive component of the logogen model explain predictability effects?

  Sentence context partially activates logogens, lowering their threshold
• What is the word superiority effect?

  It is easier to identify a letter in the context of a word than in isolation
• Who developed the Interactive Activation Model?

  McClelland and Rumelhart
• What does transpose letter priming refer to?

  It refers to findings that can be accounted for in models where letter position isn't fixed

  
• What are the two routes in the dual-route model of word recognition?

  • Direct route: connects visually presented words to the mental lexicon for high frequency words.
  • Phonological route: uses grapheme-to-phoneme conversion for low-frequency words and non-words.

  
• How do problems with each route in the dual-route model lead to reading disorders?

  They lead to different patterns of reading disorder

  
• What is a characteristic of phonological dyslexia?

  Difficulty with reading non-words
• What is a characteristic of surface dyslexia?

  Problems reading irregular words