Visual phonology: The effects of orthographic consistency on different auditory word recognition tasks

Abstract

International audienceIn this study, we investigated orthographic influences on spoken word recognition. The degree of spelling inconsistency was manipulated while rime phonology was held constant. Inconsistent words with subdominant spellings were processed more slowly than inconsistent words with dominant spellings. This graded consistency effect was obtained in three experiments. However, the effect was strongest in lexical decision, intermediate in rime detection, and weakest in auditory naming. We conclude that (1) orthographic consistency effects are not artifacts of phonological, phonetic, or phonotactic properties of the stimulus material; (2) orthographic effects can be found even when the error rate is extremely low, which rules out the possibility that they result from strategies used to reduce task difficulty; and (3) orthographic effects are not restricted to lexical decision. However, they are stronger in lexical decision than in other tasks. Overall, the study shows that learning about orthography alters the way we process spoken language

Orthography Influences the Perception and Production of Speech

“…In respect of speech perception, results showed a significant orthographic effect on auditory lexical decision but not on shadowing, thus replicating previous findings with real words (e.g. Pattamadilok et al, 2007;Ziegler et al, 2004). In respect of speech production, results showed for the first time an effect of orthography on simple picture naming that emerged immediately following the introduction of the spellings of words on the second day, and that persisted in testing on the third day.…”

Orthographic influences in spoken word recognition: The consistency effect in semantic and gender categorization tasks

“…Generally, the idea motivating such a manipulation is that orthographic codes should be activated from phonology to affect recognition and that erroneous orthographic activation from phonology is more likely to occur when some of the word's sounds can be associated with various orthographies (as in / /) than when a unique spelling exists (e.g., obe for /O /, as in probe). Ziegler and Ferrand (1998) reported that words with inconsistently spelled rimes yielded slower lexical decisions than did words with an orthographically consistent rime, an observation that was confirmed by subsequent auditory lexical decision studies (Ventura, Morais, Pattamadilok, & Kolinsky, 2004;Ziegler, Ferrand, & Montant, 2004). Furthermore, using the same task, Perre and Ziegler (2008) recently reported event-related brain potential differences between consistent and inconsistent words.…”

“…Thus far, no clear picture has emerged, however. Although small consistency effects have occasionally been described in tasks requiring the repetition of auditory words Ziegler et al, 2004), in other studies, no effect has been reported (Pattamadilok, Morais, Ventura, & Kolinsky, 2007;Ventura et al, 2004). That there is a lack of converging evidence from different tasks may indicate that the strong consistency effect observed in the lexical decision task follows from particular processes engaged in evaluating the lexical status of the stimuli.…”

“…Hence, the present data argue in favor of orthographic influences that take place before decisional processes. In addition to adding to a growing body of evidence suggesting that orthographic knowledge affects spoken word recognition (e.g., Chéreau, Gaskell, & Dumay, 2007;Taft, Castles, Davis, Lazendic, & Nguyen-Hoan, 2008;Ventura et al, 2004;Ziegler et al, 2004), the present findings indicate that orthographic influences are not restricted to lexical access but that they expand to semantic and grammatical access. Although differences in the overall level of performance across tasks, as well as in stimulus material, render the comparison hazardous, it is worth noting that the absolute sizes of the effects were similar in the two tasks (58 and 54 msec) and were similar in magnitude to the effects described previously in lexical decision studies (generally, between 50 and 80 msec).…”

Orthography influences the perception and production of speech.

“…Further, while this result has been generalized to semantic categorization and gender decision (Peereman, Dufour, & Burt, 2009), it is unclear whether it holds for tasks that do not involve an explicit decision component. The few studies that have investigated orthographic effects in shadowing have reported null effects (e.g., Pattamadilok et al, 2007;Ventura et al, 2004;Ziegler et al, 2004), but some of these studies also failed to uncover the lexical effects that are often observed in this task (e.g, Tyler, 2000).…”