Stéphanie Mathey

Syllabic Priming in Lexical Decision and Naming Tasks : The Syllable Congruency Effect Re-examined in French

This study investigated the role of the syllable in visual recognition of French words. The syllable congruency procedure was combined with masked priming in the lexical-decision task (Experiments 1 and 3) and the naming task (Experiment 2). Target words were preceded by a nonword prime sharing the first three letters that either corresponded to the syllable (congruent condition), or not (incongruent condition). When primes were displayed for 67 ms, similar results were found in both the lexical decision and the naming tasks. Consonant-vowel targets such as BA.LANCE were recognised more rapidly in the congruent condition than in the incongruent and control conditions, while consonant-vowel-consonant targets such as BAL.CON were recognised more rapidly in the congruent and incongruent conditions than in the control condition. When a 43-ms SOA was used in the lexical-decision task, no significant priming effect was obtained. The results are discussed in an interactive-activation model incorporating syllable units.

Neighbourhood distribution interacts with orthographic priming in the lexical decision task

Lexical decision tasks (LDTs) were used with a masked priming procedure to test whether neighbourhood distribution interacts with orthographic priming. Word targets had either ‘single’ neighbours when their two higher frequency orthographic neighbours were spread over letter positions (e.g., neighbours of LOBE: robe-loge) or ‘twin’ neighbours when they were concentrated on a single letter position (e.g., neighbours of FARD: lard-tard). All word targets were preceded by their highest frequency orthographic neighbour or by a control prime. An inhibitory priming effect was found for words with single neighbours, but not for words with twin neighbours, in both a yes/no LDT (Experiment 1a) and a go/no-go LDT (Experiment 1b). This interaction was replicated in a go/no-go LDT when the position of the letter yielding the neighbour prime was controlled (Experiment 2). Simulations run on the word materials revealed that the interactive activation model captures the inhibitory priming effect in the single-neighbour condition but fails to capture the loss of priming in the twin-neighbour condition.

InfoSyll: a syllabary providing statistical information on phonological and orthographic syllables.

There is now a growing body of evidence in various languages supporting the claim that syllables are functional units of visual word processing. In the perspective of modeling the processing of polysyllabic words and the activation of syllables, current studies investigate syllabic effects with subtle manipulations. We present here a syllabary of the French language aiming at answering new constraints when designing experiments on the syllable issue. The InfoSyll syllabary provides exhaustive characteristics and statistical information for each phonological syllable (e.g., /fi/) and for its corresponding orthographic syllables (e.g., fi, phi, phy, fee, fix, fis). Variables such as the type and token positional frequencies, the number and frequencies of the correspondences between orthographic and phonological syllables are provided. As discussed, such computations should allow precise controls, manipulations and quantitative descriptions of syllabic variables in the field of psycholinguistic research.

Can we see syllables in monosyllabic words? A study with illusory conjunctions

Mathey, Zagar, Doignon, and Seigneuric (2006) reported an inhibitory effect of syllabic neighbourhood in monosyllabic French words suggesting that syllable units mediate the access to lexical representations of monosyllabic stimuli. Two experiments were conducted to investigate the perception of syllable units in monosyllabic stimuli. The illusory conjunction paradigm was used to examine perceptual groupings of letters. Experiment 1 showed that potential syllables in monosyllabic French words (e.g., BI in BICHE) affected the pattern of illusory conjunctions. Experiment 2 indicated that the perceptual parsing in monosyllabic items was due to syllable information and orthographic redundancy. The implications of the data are discussed for visual word recognition processes in an interactive activation model incorporating syllable units and connected adjacent letters (IAS; Mathey et al., 2006).

The association between routinization and cognitive resources in later life

The aim of this study was to investigate the association between routinization of daily life activities and cognitive resources during aging. Routinization could increase excessively during aging and become maladaptative in reducing individual resources. Fifty-two young participants (M = 20.8 years) and 62 older participants (M = 66.9 years) underwent a routinization scale and cognitive tasks of working memory, speed of processing, and attention. Results revealed that older adults presented a decrease on the three cognitive measures but no change on the routinization score. While no association was observed between routinization and cognitive measures for the young adults, a high routinization was associated with lower cognitive flexibility in the older adults. These findings are interpreted in the light of theories about the positive impact of variety in daily life environment on cognitive functions.

Investigation of age-related differences in an adapted Hayling task

The Hayling task is traditionally used to assess activation and inhibitory processes efficiency among various populations, such as elderly adults. However, the classical design of the task may also involve the influence of strategy use and efficiency of sentence processing in the possible differences between individuals. Therefore, the present study investigated activation and inhibitory processes in aging with two formats of an adapted Hayling task designed to reduce the involvement of these alternative factors. Thirty young adults (M=20.7 years) and 31 older adults (M=69.6 years) performed an adapted Hayling task including a switching block (i.e., unblocked design) in addition to the classical task (i.e., blocked design), and the selection of the response between two propositions. The results obtained with the classical blocked design showed age-related deficits in the suppression sections of the task but also in the initiation ones. These findings can be explained by a co-impairment of both inhibition and activation processes in aging. The results of the unblocked Hayling task, in which strategy use would be reduced, confirmed this age-related decline in both activation and inhibition processes. Moreover, significant correlations between the unblocked design and the Trail Making Test revealed that flexibility is equally involved in the completion of both sections of this design. Finally, the use of a forced-response choice offers a format that is easy to administer to people with normal or pathological aging. This seems particularly relevant for these populations in whom the production of an unrelated word often poses problems.

Activation of syllable units during visual recognition of French words in Grade 2

ABSTRACTThe aim of the study was to investigate the syllable activation hypothesis in French beginning readers. Second graders performed a lexical decision task in which bisyllabic words were presented in two colours that either matched the syllable boundaries or not. The data showed that the children were sensitive to syllable match and to syllable complexity. In addition, good readers were slowed down while poor readers were speeded up by syllable match. These findings suggest that syllables are functional units of lexical access in children and that syllable activation is influenced by reading level.

When WORDS with Higher-frequency Neighbours Become Words with No Higher-frequency Neighbour (Or How to Undress the Neighbourhood Frequency Effect)

Abstract “SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS” (The ploughman, with his plough, manages the work) The influence of lexical similarity on word recognition has been discussed not only because of its theoretical impact but also because it is difficult to replicate. Among the multiplicity of the causes of this inconsistency one reason can be that different words were used in comparing words with higher-frequency neighbours (HFN) and words without HFN. In this experiment we chose French words for which the neighbourhood changes when they are written in UPPER case or in lower case. For example ‘DEFI’ has one HFN (‘DEMI’) but when it is displayed in lower case ‘defi’ has no HFN because ‘demi’ has no accent on the ‘e’. Reaction times in a lexical decision task for these words were compared with a control condition in which there was no change in the neighbourhood when the word typography was changed (‘NEON — neon’). The data showed a significant HFN effect: reaction times were longer on ‘DEFI’ than on ‘defi’ while no difference was observed between ‘NEON’ and ‘neon’. Moreover the simulations ran with the IA model (McClelland and Rumelhart, 1981) showed the same pattern of results. These data confirm the reality of an inhibitory mechanism during visual word recognition.

Effect of Syllable Congruency in Sixth Graders in the Lexical Decision Task with Masked Priming.

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of the syllable in visual recognition of French words in Grade 6. To do so, the syllabic congruency effect was examined in the lexical decision task combined with masked priming. Target words were preceded by pseudoword primes sharing the first letters that either corresponded to the syllable (congruent condition) or not (incongruent condition). A reliable syllable congruency was found. Children were faster to recognize words when the prime matched for the first syllable. These results are discussed in interactive activation models including syllables and in the dual-route approach.

The effect of prime duration in masked orthographic priming depends on neighborhood distribution.

A lexical decision task was used with a masked priming procedure to investigate whether and to what extent neighborhood distribution influences the effect of prime duration in masked orthographic priming. French word targets had two higher frequency neighbors that were either distributed over two letter positions (e.g., LOBE/robe-loge) or concentrated on a single letter position (e.g., FARD/tard-lard). Word targets were preceded by their highest frequency neighbor or by a control prime. Four prime durations were compared (27, 39, 53, and 67 ms). Results showed that the inhibitory priming effect found for words with distributed neighbors at a 67-ms stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was canceled when prime duration decreased. In contrast, no priming effect was found in any of the four prime durations for words with concentrated neighbors. Simulations run on the word materials revealed that the interactive activation model (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981) captured the increasing inhibitory priming effect in the distributed neighbor condition but failed to capture the loss of priming in the concentrated neighbor condition.