Jocelyn R. Folk

The interaction of lexical and sublexical information in spelling: What's the point?

Most theories of spelling propose two major processes for translating between orthography and phonology: a lexical process for retrieving the spellings of familiar words and a sublexical process for assembling the spellings of unfamiliar letter strings based on knowledge of the systematic correspondences between phonemes and graphemes. We investigated how the lexical and sublexical processes function and interact in spelling by selectively interfering with the sublexical process in a dysgraphic individual. By comparing spelling performance under normal conditions and under conditions of sublexical disruption we were able to gain insight into the functioning and the unique contributions of the sublexical process. The results support the hypothesis that the sublexical process serves to strengthen a target word and provide it with a competitive advantage over orthographically and phonologically similar word neighbours that are in competition with the target for selection.

Effects of syntactic category assignment on lexical ambiguity resolution in reading: an eye movement analysis.

Readers’ eye movements were monitored as they read sentences containing lexically ambiguous words whose meanings share a single syntactic category (e.g.,calf), lexically ambiguous words whose meanings belong to different syntactic categories (e.g.,duck), or unambiguous control words. Information provided prior to the target always unambiguously specified the context-appropriate syntactic-category assignment for the target. Fixation times were longer on ambiguous words whose meanings share a single syntactic category than on controls, both when prior context was semantically consistent with the subordinate interpretation of a biased ambiguous word (Experiment 1) and when prior context was semantically neutral as to the intended interpretation of a balanced ambiguous word (Experiment 2). These ambiguity effects, which resulted from differences in difficulty with meaning resolution, were not found when the ambiguity crossed syntactic categories. These data indicate that, in the absence of syntactic ambiguity, syntactic-category information mediates the semantic-resolution process.

Feedforward and feedback consistency effects for high‐ and low‐frequency words in lexical decision and naming

In three experiments, we examined feedforward and feedback consistency effects in word recognition. Feedforward consistency is the degree to which a words pronunciation is consistent with that of similarly spelled words, and feedback consistency refers to whether there is more than one way to spell a pronunciation. Previously, Stone, Vanhoy, and Van Orden (1997) reported feedforward and feedback consistency effects for low-frequency words in a lexical decision task. We investigated the effect of feedforward and feedback consistency for both high- and low-frequency words in lexical decision and naming. In both tasks, we found that feedforward and feedback inconsistent words were processed more slowly than consistent words, regardless of word frequency. These findings indicate that both types of consistency are involved in visual word recognition.

Interaction of lexical and sublexical information in spelling: Evidence from nonword priming

In a series of lexical priming experiments we examined the interaction between spelling processes dedicated to spelling familiar words (lexical processes) and those dedicated to spelling unfamiliar words or nonwords (sublexical processes). Participants listened to lists of intermixed monosyllabic words and nonwords and were required to spell only the nonwords. In the priming condition, nonwords were preceded by real word primes that were phonologically related to the nonwords. In two experiments, we found that the spellings of nonwords could be influenced by previously heard rhyming words, replicating previous work. Furthermore, we examined the mechanism of this lexical/sublexical interaction and found that it is both phonologically and orthographically based and that word primes are most effective when they overlap in word body (vowel+coda) with the nonword. We conclude that lexical and sublexical processes interact in a manner that involves a dynamic updating of sound–spelling correspondences, which, at a minimum, are specified in terms of the word body.

All Letters Are Not Equal: Subgraphemic Texture in Orthographic Working Memory

A central issue in the study of reading and spelling has been to understand how the consistency or frequency of letter-sound relationships affects written language processing. We present, for the first time, evidence that the sound-spelling frequency of subgraphemic elements of words (letters within digraphs) contributes to the accuracy with which these letters are produced in spelling. We report findings from 2 studies that demonstrate that letters within digraphs display differential susceptibility to error under conditions of disruption to orthographic working memory (O-WM). In the 1st, O-WM was disrupted as a result of neurological damage; in the 2nd, O-WM disruption was produced in neurologically intact, skilled spellers under dual task conditions with a shadowing task carried out during spelling. In both studies, segments with low versus high levels of sound-letter convergence, a measure of the frequency of sublexical mappings, were more vulnerable to disruption even when factors such as letter position, consonant-vowel context, and phoneme-to-grapheme mapping probability of the digraphs were controlled. These results contribute to our understanding of the internal texture of orthographic representations, providing evidence that individual letters differ in their activation strength and, as a result, in their susceptibility to error.

The Purpose of Lexical/Sublexical Interaction during Spelling: Further Evidence from Dysgraphia and Articulatory Suppression

We investigated how the lexical and sublexical processes interact in spelling using an articulatory suppression task to disrupt the sublexical process in a dysgraphic patient (JDO). Using a similar task, Folk et al. (2002) found evidence that the sublexical process interacts with the lexical process by strengthening a target word’s graphemes. We replicated the findings of Folk et al. in a patient with a more severe deficit to the lexical process. We compared the error patterns produced under normal spelling conditions versus spelling during articulatory suppression and found an increase in lexical substitution errors (“thaw”→T-H-O-U-G-H) under articulatory suppression. These findings indicate that by strengthening a target word’s graphemes, the sublexical process helps to create an advantage for a target word over form-related word neighbours that compete with it for output.

Phonology is Used to Access Word Meaning during Silent Reading: Evidence from Lexical Ambiguity Resolution

This chapter reviews a series of eye movement studies that address the role of phonological information in accessing word meaning during silent reading by examining the role of phonological information in lexical ambiguity resolution. The data converge on a model of skilled silent reading in which phonological information is active early in word processing, and is involved in activating word meaning. The fact that effects of phonological information persist even when activation of that information is not to the readers’ benefit, and that these effects persist even for high frequency words lead us to conclude that phonological coding is an integral part of early word processing in silent reading.

Reading Skill and Word Skipping: Implications for Visual and Linguistic Accounts of Word Skipping.

We investigated whether high-skill readers skip more words than low-skill readers as a result of parafoveal processing differences based on reading skill. We manipulated foveal load and word length, two variables that strongly influence word skipping, and measured reading skill using the Nelson-Denny Reading Test. We found that reading skill did not influence the probability of skipping five-letter words, but low-skill readers were less likely to skip three-letter words when foveal load was high. Thus, reading skill is likely to influence word skipping when the amount of information in the parafovea falls within the word identification span. We interpret the data in the context of visual-based (extended optimal viewing position model) and linguistic based (E-Z Reader model) accounts of word skipping. The models make different predictions about how and why a word and skipped; however, the data indicate that both models should take into account the fact that different factors influence skipping rates for high- and low-skill readers.

Skipped words and fixated words are processed differently during reading

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether words are processed differently when they are fixated during silent reading than when they are skipped. According to a serial processing model of eye movement control (e.g., EZ Reader) skipped words are fully processed (Reichle, Rayner, Pollatsek, Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 26(04):445–476, 2003), whereas in a parallel processing model (e.g., SWIFT) skipped words do not need to be fully processed (Engbert, Nuthmann, Richter, Kliegl, Psychological Review, 112(4):777–813, 2005). Participants read 34 sentences with target words embedded in them while their eye movements were recorded. All target words were three-letter, low-frequency, and unpredictable nouns. After the reading session, participants completed a repetition priming lexical decision task with the target words from the reading session included as the repetition prime targets, with presentation of those same words during the reading task acting as the prime. When participants skipped a word during the reading session, their reaction times on the lexical decision task were significantly longer (M = 656.42 ms) than when they fixated the word (M = 614.43 ms). This result provides evidence that skipped words are sometimes not processed to the same degree as fixated words during reading.

Lexical Influences on the Sublexical System during Nonword Spelling

We investigated the combined contributions of multiple mechanisms that have been previously indicated to underlie the lexical system’s influence on the spelling of unfamiliar words. In two lexical priming studies we presented lists of words and nonwords aurally for participants to spell only the nonwords. Word primes that rhymed with the target nonwords immediately preceded the nonwords (Experiment 1) or there were two intervening items between the prime word and target nonword (Experiment 2). We found that prime words influenced nonword spellings even across intervening items, suggesting that the presentation of a real word may temporarily re-weight sublexical sound-to-spelling correspondences. Importantly, word neighbors were also found to influence nonword spelling, even in the absence of a prime word. Our data provide evidence of the operation of multiple mechanisms that underlie the lexical system’s influence on the sublexical system during the spelling of unfamiliar words (or nonwords).