Per Henning Uppstad

Timed written picture naming in 14 European languages

We describe the Multilanguage Written Picture Naming Dataset. This gives trial-level data and time and agreement norms for written naming of the 260 pictures of everyday objects that compose the colorized Snodgrass and Vanderwart picture set (Rossion & Pourtois in Perception, 33, 217–236, 2004). Adult participants gave keyboarded responses in their first language under controlled experimental conditions (N = 1,274, with subsamples responding in Bulgarian, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish). We measured the time to initiate a response (RT) and interkeypress intervals, and calculated measures of name and spelling agreement. There was a tendency across all languages for quicker RTs to pictures with higher familiarity, image agreement, and name frequency, and with higher name agreement. Effects of spelling agreement and effects on output rates after writing onset were present in some, but not all, languages. Written naming therefore shows name retrieval effects that are similar to those found in speech, but our findings suggest the need for cross-language comparisons as we seek to understand the orthographic retrieval and/or assembly processes that are specific to written output.

Adolescent weak decoders writing in a shallow orthography: process and product

ABSTRACT It has been hypothesized that students with dyslexia struggle with writing because of a word-level focus that reduces attention to higher level textual features (structure, theme development). This may result from difficulties with spelling and/or difficulties with reading. Twenty-six Norwegian upper secondary students (M = 16.9 years) with weak decoding skills and 26 age-matched controls composed expository texts by keyboard under two conditions: normally and with letters masked to prevent them reading what they were writing. Weak decoders made more spelling errors and produced poorer quality text. Their inter-key-press latencies were substantially longer preword, at word end, and within word. These findings provide some support for the word-level focus hypothesis, although we found that weak decoders were slightly less likely to engage in word-level editing. Preventing reading did not affect differences between weak decoders and controls, indicating that their reduced fluency was associated with production rather than reading difficulties.

The Status of the Concept of 'Phoneme' in Psycholinguistics

The notion of the phoneme counts as a break-through of modern theoretical linguistics in the early twentieth century. It paved the way for descriptions of distinctive features at different levels in linguistics. Although it has since then had a turbulent existence across altering theoretical positions, it remains a powerful concept of a fundamental unit in spoken language. At the same time, its conceptual status remains highly unclear. The present article aims to clarify the status of the concept of ‘phoneme’ in psycholinguistics, based on the scientific concepts of description, understanding and explanation. Theoretical linguistics has provided mainly descriptions. The ideas underlying this article are, first, that these descriptions may not be directly relevant to psycholinguistics and, second, that psycholinguistics in this sense is not a sub-discipline of theoretical linguistics. Rather, these two disciplines operate with different sets of features and with different orientations when it comes to the scientific concepts of description, understanding and explanation.

Written language skills and the notion of "Lexicon"

Research on written language skills is continuously having to deal with assumptions about the relationship between spoken and written language. What seems clear is that no objective description of this relation can easily be given, a fact that is highlighted by the claims for both a “written language bias” and a “spoken language bias”. These claims point out how the study of written language is restricted by the study of spoken language and vice versa. These insights are important observations on the empirical basis of studies in speech and writing. In the present paper it is claimed that it is possible to investigate the relation of speech and writing on a stronger empirical basis, and that this can be done by first giving equal validity to spoken and written language, and second by giving preference to theory with a minimum of introspection. The paper addresses researchers working with written language skills. First, some assumptions concerning the mental lexicon in mainstream theory of written language skills are questioned. These assumptions are here linked to cognitivism and linguistic formalism. Second, alternative assumptions are derived from a pairing of functional approaches to language and connectionism. These alternative assumptions may be seen as contributions to a revitalized understanding of the connection between phonology and lexicon when studying written language skills.

Reasons for relating representations when reading digital multimodal science information

This exploratory study examined 16 participants’ reasons for relating representations when reading online information that presented weather forecasts comprising a variety of representations. They were told to advise a friend, who was planning to paint the exterior of his house, based on the online information. The participants’ multimodal reading was tracked with a SMI RED (50 Hz) eye-tracker, and their reasons for relating representations were investigated through a retrospective think-aloud protocol cued by the recording of the individual’s reading behaviour and a stand-alone interview. In line with expected behaviour, results suggest that decision-making processes influenced the construction of reading paths. More interestingly, results showed that the participants’ reasons for making transitions between representations were to control and compare information. The discussion focuses on this study’s unique contribution in terms of new conjectures for future research.

Developmental Dynamics of Early Reading Skill, Literacy Interest and Readers' Self-Concept within the First Year of Formal Schooling.

Abstract Previous studies have documented robust relationships between emergent literacy and later reading performance. A growing body of research has also reported associations between motivational factors and reading in early phases of reading development. However, there is less research about cross-lagged relationships between motivational factors and reading skills in beginning readers. To examine relationships between early reading skills, literacy interest and reader self-concept, we tested 1141 children twice during their first year of formal reading instruction in school. Cross-lagged analysis showed strong stability in reading skills and medium stability in literacy interest and reader self-concept over the first school year. We also found bidirectional relationships between reading skills and self-concept and between the motivational components of literacy interest and reader self-concept. In the final part of the article, we address the potential theoretical progress attainable through the use of cross-lagged designs in this field.

Towards an Integrated View of Literacy

No abstract available. (Published: 23 September 2015) Nordic Journal of Literacy Research, Vol. 1, 2015, pp. 13. http://dx.doi.org/10.17585/njlr.v1.167

Historical Introduction – Beginning and Continuation of Dyslexia Research

I here use the term ‘history of dyslexia research’, but as we will see there are various terms for, as well as various views of, the condition studied. While there is widespread agreement that dyslexia includes difficulties in both reading and writing, there is disagreement as regards how large those difficulties have to be, how prevalent they are and whether they change through development and/or pedagogical intervention.

Challenges in Cognitive Psychology

From the turn of the century until the 1950s, it was commonly understood that dyslexia was a biologically determined condition. Perceptional and neurological anomalies were centrally featured in theories on the disorder. In the 1950s and 1960s it became increasingly common to attribute reading and writing difficulties to inadequate or incomplete education.

Definitions and Explanations in Language, Reading and Dyslexia Research

This chapter aims to analyze and clarify some fundamental issues in language, reading and dyslexia research. In particular, questions and problems concerning definition, explanation and understanding are addressed. A central idea is that the cognitive and linguistic approach has had a limited significance when it comes to explanation of causal mechanisms in reading and dyslexia research. The reasoning brought forward in this chapter takes as starting point that we first need precise definitions of the phenomena to be studied, such as ‘reading’, ‘dyslexia’ and ‘language’, before we choose methods that in a best possible way may capture the important characteristics of the phenomenon. In the field of reading and dyslexia ‘skill’ is emphasized as an important phenomenon, and the core of this concept is considered to be potentiality. We suggest that language primarily should be defined as a skill and not as a system that exist more or less independently of humans and speech acts. The position taken is that mainstream definitions of ‘language’ are not well suited for the empirical study of language skills, because they were formulated to serve other objectives. Inspired by the philosophy of science from Karl Popper we suggest that the study of language, reading and dyslexia must be based on a more radical and consequent empiricism. First, we will present some characteristics of the cognitive and linguistic approach to reading and dyslexia. Second, we will identify some problems and limitations in this approach. In our suggestions for future research we first focus on conditions that should be imposed on definitions in research. Next, we propose a definition of ’skill’ in general and ’language skill’ in particular.