Transcript Cross-linguistic Studies of Visual Word Recognition

Cross-linguistic Studies of Visual
Word Recognition
Greg Simpson
Illinois State University
Word Recognition and Orthographies
• The role of cross-linguistic studies in
psychology
– Universals vs language-specific phenomena
• Confusing the subject matter with the
language
• Confusing the subject matter with the
subjects
• Languages chosen for certain characteristics
Word Recognition and Orthographies
• Ambiguous words (e.g., count)
– Number count
– Handsome count
• Context leads to activating one
meaning, or
• Context selects among activated
meanings
Sample of the meanings of “Shi”
• First tone:
– Wet, poetry, teacher, model, example, troops, lion, hush, lose, break
(promise), get lost, mishap, mistake, implement (v), bestow, grant,
corpse, louse
• Second tone:
– Solid, true, honest, fruit, knowledge, ten, assorted stone, pick up,
time, season, opportunity, occasionally, eat, erode
• Third tone:
– Drive, sail, excrement, arrow, swear, beginning, only then
Sample of the meanings of “Shi”
• Fourth tone:
– Room, market, city, persimmon, type, pattern, formula, try,
examination, wipe, show, notify, look at, scholar, rely on,
serve, lifetime, age, world, epoch, matter, business,
trouble, accident, job, responsibility, swear, pledge, to die,
power, momentum, situation, sign, gesture, to be correct,
explain, be relieved of, set free, fit proper, comfortable,
follow, family name, decorations, dress up, act a part
Word Recognition and Orthographies
• Writing represents speech
– A unit of writing represents a unit of the
speech stream
• Units of the speech stream
– Morpheme: Logography (Chinese)
– Syllable: Syllabary (Japanese)
– Phoneme: Alphabet (Most of the rest)
Orthographic Transparency
• Print-pronunciation relations
– Opaque (e.g., English)
• Lack of 1:1 relation of graphemes to
phonemes
–
–
–
–
great/giant
sent/cent
morpheme
morpheme/shepherd
– Transparent (e.g., Spanish, Korean)
• Closer correspondence of graphemes
to phonemes
Sejong the Great (1397-1450)
• The most rational of all writing systems
Watanabe & Suzuki (1981)
• If rulers were ever measured by anything besides
military exploits, [Sejong] would surely be among
the foremost to have appeared on the stage of
history.
DeFrancis (1989)
• An intelligent person can learn the system before the
morning is over. Even the thick-headed can master it
in ten days.
Hangul scholar (ca. 1446)
Korean Orthography
• The Hangul alphabet
– Transparent
– Letter shape
• Related phonemes/related letters
• Consonants and the vocal tract
• Syllable block printing
Hangul Consonants
Origin of Consonant Shape
Hangul Vowels
• Variations on vertical or
horizontal line
• Related vowels represented by
similar letters (ah/yah,
oh/yoh)
Syllable-block Printing
Hangul and Hanza
• Hangul and Hanza
naming
– .8 Hanza/.2 Hangul
– .2 Hanza/.8 Hangul
• Dual-route Model
– Phonological
– Lexical
– Neurological evidence
• Acquired dyslexia
– Word-reading evidence
• Regular and irregular
words
• Nonwords
• Assessing the routes
– Finding a “marker”
• Regularity
• Frequency
• Semantic Priming
• Strategic control
– Biasing a route
Hangul Frequency Experiment
• 20 HF Hangul words
• 20 LF Hangul words
• 160 Filler words
– Hangul words
– Hanza words
– Hangul pseudowords
• Will frequency effect
change as function of
filler?
Hangul Frequency Experiment
850
• Results
High Freq
800
Mean Naming Latency
– Frequency effect larger
with Hanza word fillers
– No effect with Hangul
pw fillers
– Route can be
emphasized according
to list context
Low Freq
750
700
650
600
Hangul
Hanza
Filler Condition
Hangul PW
Some Observations, Puzzles, and Implications
• How should we teach reading?
• The “Great Debate”
– Phonics
– Whole language
• Relation to the dual-route model
• English and the advantage of the lexical
path -- suggests whole language
Some Observations, Puzzles, and Implications
• But, does the fluent adult reader use
knowledge of the sound system?
– Rows-flower
• Children and phonological awareness