L8 Language Comprehension

Question 1

What is reading?

Answer 1

Converting written language (Orthography) into mental representations.

Question 2

What types of Writing systems are there?

Answer 2

Logo-graphic - where symbols are used to represent morphemes

Alphabetic - where multiple graphemes are used to represent morphemes

Question 3

Whats the difference between a Transparent language and an Opaque language?

Answer 3

Transparent - have 1 to 1 mapping of graphemes to phonemes, eg Italian

Opaque - don’t have 1 to 1 mapping of graphemes to phonemes, eg knight

Question 4

Outline the Dual-Route cascading (DRC) model of learning to read.

Answer 4

Lexical Non-Lexical

                                    Written word
                                   /                      \
            Orthographic                           Grapheme to
                  Lexicon    \                            Phoneme
               /                     \                      Correspondence
              /                         \                   /
  semantics------------------Phonological 
                                             Lexicon

• Two routes to access semantics, lexical and non-lexical
• Use lexical route when orthographic recognised
• When we don’t know orthographic, decode graphemes
  into phonemes to access phonological lexicon and then
  semantics
• Discrete, so always processing in a cascading manner
• Non-lexical route has trouble with irregular words

Question 5

Describe supporting evidence for the DRC.

Answer 5

Evidence - FMRI studies show two pathways for reading regular and irregular words

Evidence - accounts for dyslexia, lack of connectivity between two routes

Question 6

How does Familiarity impact how quickly a word is recognised? include evidence.

Answer 6

Familiar words are recognised quickly because we have a representation of them in the orthographic lexicon

Evidence - participants saw two words simultaneously and were told to say wether they were the same or not. words could be;

• Real CAR———PUB
• Non real VIB———CUW

Found quickest responses between the real words.

Question 7

How does Length and Frequency impact how quickly a word is recognised? include evidence.

Answer 7

Frequent words are recognised quicker than infrequent words. Length only increases recognition time when they are unfamiliar because of decoding.

Evidence - Participant read out loud High, Low frequency real or non real words. Found fastest recognition for High frequency, slowest recognition to long non real words.

Question 8

How does Neighbourhood density impact how quickly a word is recognised? include evidence.

Answer 8

High neighbourhood density facilitates recognition of a word.

Evidence - On a LDT Low freq words with high neighbourhood density are recognised quicker that low freq low neighbourhood density. No effect found between high frequency words.

Question 9

How does Context impact how quickly a word is recognised? include evidence.

Answer 9

When the context to a word (surrounding) is matching, we recognise it quicker, because we try to predict ahead, which activates words which would fit.

Evidence - However context doesnt have a massive impact because we can still read jumbled words.

Question 10

How do the DRC and shares Self teaching hypothesis explain learning to read? include evidence.

Answer 10

DRC - children use non-lexical route to decode written language, using grapheme-phoneme correspondence to access the phonological lexicon. From here, orthographic representations are formed, and semantics accessed. After around 4 exposures, lexical route can be used to access semantics directly.

Self teaching hypothesis - children learn new words by Grapheme-phoneme correspondence with no external reliance

Evidence - children learnt novel word AKUNIA in just four exposures, and could answer questions about its spelling etc

However…

Evidence - Found no association between decoding ability and likelyhood of forming new mental representation

Evidence - other researchers suggest its a backwards process, where semantics are attained by hearing the word and finding out what relationship it has to the environment. so language can be inferred.