Sex differences in phonological processes: Speeded matching and word reading

Abstract

Sex differences in phonological processing were investigated in four experiments. Two experiments required college students to decide whether two five-letter strings matched. Same-case (AA)pairs of letter strings could be matched using physical features, whereas mixed-case (Aa) pairs of letter strings required the mediation of a speech-based code (letter name) for the comparison. Women were significantly faster than men when the comparisons required the speech-based codes. In another experiment, college students read lists of words and lists of pseudohomophones to determine whether there was a sex difference in the computation of phonology for unfamiliar words (assembled phonology). In a final experiment, students read lists of words with phonologically inconsistent spelling patterns to determine whether there was a sex difference in accessing pronunciations of familiar words (addressed phonology). Women were more proficient than men under both of these conditions. Results were interpreted in terms of a female advantage in both prelexical and lexical processing, an advantage that may stem from a sex difference in the quality of the phonological representations.Phonological processing refers to the use of abstract phonological representations for processing oral and written language. According to Chomsky & Halle (1968), phonological transformations of a language connect the phonetic surface structures to underlying lexical and abstract phonological representations. These abstract representations are not "speech sounds" nor are they vocalized or subvocalized speech, though they mediate such activities (Frost, 1998), and they share much in common with the speech-based information that is stored and rehearsed in Baddeley's (1992) phonological loop. These speech-based representations of speech as well as the related articulatory representations are both implicated in cognitive differences between men and women (MeGuinness, 1981).Recent evidence of a sex difference in hemispheric specialization may shed some light on the nature of the sex difference in the use of speech-based codes (Pugh et al., 1997;Shaywitz et al., 1995). During phonological processing, judging whether pronounceable non words rhymed, women on the average showed greater righthemisphere activation (inferior frontal gyrus and extrastriate region) than did men. According to Pugh et al., these regions are believed to be associated with the processing ofletters in a serial and small-grained manner (phonemes and phoneme clusters). Both men and women showed

Sex Differences in Neurophysiological Activation Patterns During Phonological Input Processing: An Influencing Factor for Normative Data

“…This confirmed an earlier study which showed that women were more subject to interference of misinformative semantic context when processing disrupted speech (Liederman et al, 2010). At a lower, lexico-phonological level, women showed an advantage over men when speeded letter matching and reading aloud of irregular (pseudo)words depends more on phonology-based speech codes (Majeres, 1999). This may indicate that women have a more ''qualitative'' representation of abstract phonological units.…”

“…Behavioral research has already shown important differences in verbal language skills in favor of women (Liederman et al, 2013;Majeres, 1999;Weiss, Kemmler, Deisenhammer, Fleischhacker, & Delazer, 2003). At a higher, semantic level, women have more effective use of delayed semantic information in disambiguating a disrupted word presented earlier in a sentence (Liederman et al, 2013).…”

Sex differences in phonological coding: Alphabet transformation speed

“…According to Guilford (1967), sex differences are found when the comparisons involve letters and digits and are not found on perceptual matching tasks involving figures even though comparisons are required. Guilford's early analysis of the sex difference in so-called perceptual speed has been supported by more recent research (Majeres, 1977(Majeres, , 1983(Majeres, , 1988(Majeres, , 1990(Majeres, , 1999. In general, these studies have confirmed that the sex difference on socalled perceptual speed tests and speeded matching tasks are directly related to the degree that the comparisons are speech-based or verbally mediated.…”

“…From this perspective it is not surprising that boys have more problems in learning to read (see Halpern, 2000) and even as adults are less proficient at the more automated aspects of reading. For example, Majeres (1999) found that women could read lists of common words faster than men. This was interpreted as reflecting a sex difference in time to access phonological name codes.…”

A sex difference in visual influence on heard speech

“…Jaeger et al (1998) demonstrated greater bilateral activation in the perisylvian cortex (which includes the STG, the IFG, and the adjacent premotor cortex; Riecker, Wildgruber, Dogil, Grodd, & Ackermann, 2002) for females than for males in the production of past tense verb forms. Differential patterns of processing are thought to underlie these reported sex differences (Majeres, 1999), with bilaterality affording faster and/or more efficient phonological processing for women (Coney, 2002).…”