On-line Orthographic Influences on Spoken Language in a Semantic Task

Abstract

Literacy changes the way the brain processes spoken language. Most psycholinguists believe that orthographic effects on spoken language are either strategic or restricted to meta-phonological tasks. We used event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to investigate the locus and the time course of orthographic effects on spoken word recognition in a semantic task. Participants were asked to decide whether a given word belonged to a semantic category (body parts). On no-go trials, words were presented that were either orthographically consistent or inconsistent. Orthographic inconsistency (i.e., multiple spellings of the same phonology) could occur either in the first or the second syllable. The ERP data showed a clear orthographic consistency effect that preceded lexical access and semantic effects. Moreover, the onset of the orthographic consistency effect was time-locked to the arrival of the inconsistency in a spoken word, which suggests that orthography influences spoken language in a time-dependent manner. The present data join recent evidence from brain imaging showing orthographic activation in spoken language tasks. Our results extend those findings by showing that orthographic activation occurs early and affects spoken word recognition in a semantic task that does not require the explicit processing of orthographic or phonological structure.

Literacy effects on language and vision: Emergent effects from an amodal shared resource (ASR) computational model

“…ERP (Event-related potential) data has also provided a productive means of probing time-course effects of literacy on online speech processing. Such studies demonstrate an early influence of orthography during spoken word processing, critically with effects observed in windows prior to points that are classically viewed as the time point of lexical access (Semantic categorisation task: Pattamadilok, Perre, Dufau, & Ziegler, 2009;Lexical decision task: Perre, Midgley, & Ziegler, 2009a;Perre, Pattamadilok, Montant, & Ziegler, 2009b;Perre & Ziegler, 2008). Ziegler and Ferrand (1998) suggest that the mechanisms underlying the effects of orthography on online speech processing are that following literacy training orthographic representations are activated online when processing spoken words and it is such online activation that leads to effects of orthography on speech processing.…”

Orthographic effects in spoken word recognition: Evidence from Chinese

“…Furthermore, orthographic neighborhood density (defined as the number of words that substitute a single letter within the word) also affect spoken word processing, with faster lexical decisions for words with many neighbors than with fewer neighbors (Ziegler, Muneaux, & Grainger, 2003), and the magnitude of the neighborhood effect being modulated by orthographic experience and proficiency. Finally, orthographic effects have emerged even in tasks which do not require a metaphonological analysis or lexical decision, such as when judging whether a spoken word belongs to a particular semantic category (e.g., Pattamadilok, Perre, Dufau, & Ziegler, 2009; see below for a more detailed outline), or when detecting a noise burst in a non-linguistic task (e.g., Perre, Midgley, & Ziegler, 2009). …”

“…Orthographic effects in spoken word recognition can also be explored via electroencephalography (EEG), and it appears that such effect emerge quite rapidly, in a relatively early time window starting around 300 ms after stimuli onset (e.g., Pattamadilok, Perre, Dufau, & Ziegler, 2009;Pattamadilok, Morais, Colin, & Kolinsky, 2014). For instance, Pattamadilok et al (2009) reported an EEG study in which participants pressed a key when a spoken word belonged to a semantic category, and withheld their response otherwise.…”

“…For instance, Pattamadilok et al (2009) reported an EEG study in which participants pressed a key when a spoken word belonged to a semantic category, and withheld their response otherwise. On critical "no-go" trials, words were either orthographically consistent or inconsistent.…”

Alterações dos processos fonológicos e índice de gravidade entre escolares com dislexia e escolares com bom desempenho acadêmico

“…Thus, words of different levels of alphabetic regularity can be written (8,9) . There are few studies which establish the relationship between the alterations of the phonological processes among school children with dyslexia and students with good academic performance, although there is a vast literature establishing the relationship between orality and writing (10,11) . Nonetheless, the present study also proposes to employ the phonological alterations severity analysis, already described in the national literature, concerning speech and also writing.…”