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In the present study, normative data in Turkish are presented for the 260 color versions of the original Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) picture set for the first time. Norms are reported for name and image agreement, age of acquisition (AoA), visual complexity, and conceptual familiarity, together with written word frequency, and numbers of letters and syllables. We collected data from 277 native Turkish adults in a variety of tasks. The results indicated that, whilst several measures displayed language-specific variation, we also reported what seem to be language-independent-that is, universal-measures that show a systematic relationship across several languages. The implications of the reported measures in the domain of psycholinguistic research in Turkish and for wider cross-linguistic comparisons are discussed.

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The present study examined the manner in which Turkish readers read aloud words printed in shallow (transparent) Turkish orthography. The first experiment showed that when the set consists of only word stimuli there is a significant word-frequency effect. This indicates that readers had made reference to lexical information for naming. The result of a second experiment, on the other hand, showed that when an equal number of nonwords are embedded in the stimulus set the word-frequency effect disappears. This indicates that readers had made reference to nonlexical information for naming. These results support the ideas that: (a) the preferred route for naming amongst readers of Turkish script is lexical, regardless of the orthographic-phonological transparency; and (b) the naming process is indeed a flexible one in which task demands may affect the nature of the route used for naming. The above findings are discussed in relation to research on shallow and deep (nonshallow) orthographies .

The Turkish script is characterised by completely transparent bidirectional mappings between orthography and phonology. To date, there has been no reported evidence of acquired dyslexia in Turkish speakers leading to the naïve view that reading and writing problems in Turkish are probably rare. We examined the extent to which phonological impairment and orthographic transparency influence reading disorders in a native Turkish speaker. BRB is a bilingual Turkish-English speaker with deep dysphasia accompanied by acquired dyslexia in both languages. The main findings are an effect of imageability on reading in Turkish coincident with surface dyslexia in English and preserved nonword reading. BRB's acquired dyslexia suggests that damage to phonological representations might have a consequence for learning to read in Turkish. We argue that BRB's acquired dyslexia has a common locus in chronic underactivation of phonological representations in Turkish and English. Despite a common locus, reading problems manifest themselves differently according to properties of the script and the type of task.