Phonological codes are early sources of constraint in visual semantic categorization

Abstract

Two experiments were directed at early phonological activation in the semantic categorization task. In Experiment 1, briefly exposed targets homophonic to category exemplars (ROWS for the category A FLOWER), and their graphemic controls (ROBS), were judged for category membership with and without a backward pattern mask. False positives were greater for ROWS than ROBS to the same degree under both unmasked and masked conditions. In Experiment 2, false positives were examined in the semantic categorization task under backward dichoptic masking by pseudowords that were, in turn, masked monoptically by a pattern mask. Briefly exposed homophones (e.g., WEAK), masked by a phonologically similar pseudoword ("feek"), a graphemic control ("felk"), or an unrelated pseudoword ("furt"), were categorized as category exemplars (A UNIT OF TIME). The difference in false positives was significant for wEAK-feek versus WEAK-furt, but not for WEAKfelk versus WEAK-furt. It was suggested that the persistence of the homophonic effects under the pattern masking of Experiment 1 and their amplification under the phonological masking of Experiment 2 were because phonological codes cohere rapidly and provide, thereby, immediately available constraints on semantic processing.The dual-process theory advanced by Coltheart (1978) has motivated most of the contemporary research on recognizing and pronouncing words. Two independent processes-a direct, visual process and a mediated, phonological process-are said to govern the accessing of the internal lexicon. According to the theory, these two independent processes are distinguishable in prominence and in the types of stimuli to which they most aptly apply. The primary access route is the visual process, which entails a mapping between orthographic features of individual printed/written words and lexical representations. The secondary access route is the mediated process, which involves a set of grapheme-phoneme correspondence rules turning spellings into phonological representations, and a subsequent mapping from these phonological representations onto lexical entries. For the fluent reader, familiar words and words with exceptional spellings are read primarily through the faster, direct route; the slower phonological mediation route is prominent in the reading of new words and nonwords.Since the formulation of dual-process theory, arguments have been marshalled that the appeal to a rule-governed phonological process to access the lexicon is superfluous (Humphreys & Evett, 1985): Lexical access is achieved for all word forms in a word-specific manner, by the direct visual route. The latter conclusion, however, is contradicted by a wide range of studies with Serbo-Croatian

SIHGT and SUNOD: The role of orthography and phonology in the perception of transposed letter anagrams

“…This does not reflect a task-specific strategy in which phonology is utilised solely for supporting judgements of lexicality. The effects of phonology can also be seen in tasks involving semantic categorisation of homophones and pseudohomophones (Lesch & Pollatsek, 1998;Peter & Turvey, 1994;Van Orden, 1987;Van Orden, Johnston, & Hale, 1988). Analogous effects have been found in priming studies, which show that phonological and semantic information can be accessed from masked word and nonword primes with display durations of as little as 50 ms. (Perfetti & Bell, 1991;Ferrand & Grainger, 1992).…”

Pseudohomophone Effects and Phonological Recoding Procedures in Reading Development in English and German

“…The PsH disadvantage in lexical decision can be used as a marker for the influence of phonological information during silent reading. That is, if phonology is a primary constraint during silent reading (e.g., Lukatela & Turvey, 1994;Peter & Turvey, 1994;Rayner, Sereno, Lesch, & Pollatsek, 1995;Van Orden, 1987;1991;Ziegler & Jacobs, 1995), then it should be harder to reject PsHs like BRANE than controls like BRATE. Therefore, if German children employ more efficient phonological recoding processes at the grapheme-phoneme level, as suggested by the pattern of accuracy advantages found in Experiment 1, it can be predicted that PsH interference effects will be stronger in lexical decision for German children than for English children.…”

Implicit memory for phonological processes in visual stem completion

“…Similarly, Van. Orden (1987) and others (e.g., Jared & Seidenberg, 199 I;Peter & Turvey, 1994) have found that when participants make speeded judgments concerning whether a target word (e.g., rose) is a member of a prespecified category (e.g.,jlower), homophone foils (e.g., rows) and pseudohomophone foils (e.g., roze) give rise to more false-positive errors than do orthographically matched control foils (e.g., robs). Importantly, given that the costs associated with homophony would be eliminated if readers chose not to engage phonological processes, the fact that homophony does interfere with performance in these tasks strongly suggests that phonological processes are carried out automatically.…”