language 1 Flashcards
which methods are used to study word recognition?
eye tracking
lexical decision task
naming task
what is eye tracking?
measure how long people spend looking at a word when reading
what is a lexical decision task?
measure how long people take to indicate that a string of letters is a word or not
what is a naming task?
measure how long people take to start saying a word
what is a lexical decision task often used with?
priming
what happens in an eye tracking experiment?
participant reads words from a computer screen
camera monitors which words they look at
spending lots of time looking at a word= difficult recognition
spending a short time/skipping a word= easy recognition
what happens in a lexical decision task?
presented with a series of letter strings on a computer screen
asked to identify if the letters they are presented with form a word
longer it took= more difficult to recognise
what happens in a naming task?
presented with a word
told to pronounce as quickly as possible without stuttering/mispronouncing
to analyse the data- saw if a word was correctly pronounced or if an error occurred
what factors affect word recognition?
word frequency
predictability
neighbourhood effects
what is word frequency?
commonly used words are recognised more easily than infrequent words
high frequency words are words which we encounter often
who investigated word frequency?
Schilling, Rayner and Chumbley
what happened in the word frequency experiment? (Schilling, Rayner and Chumbley)
used eye tracking for words presented in context
looked at how long readers spent looking at high/low frequency words
what is predictability?
predictable words are recognised more easily than those in neutral or misleading contexts
context in which a word appears in affects how easy it is to recognise
who researched predictability?
Tulving and Gold
what happened in predictability experiments? (Tulving and Gold)
participants read an incomplete sentecne
then had to recognise a single word
may be predictable or unrelated depending on the context of the sentence
measured the exposure time necessary for recognition
increasing relevant context reduced the amount of time needed for participants to recognise the target word
what are neighbourhood effects?
word identification can be sped up when similar words exist in the language
what is the orthographic neighbourhood?
number of words which can be formed by changing one letter of a word whilst maintaining letter position (word spelling)
eg) for tank- ‘task’ and ‘rank’
what is the effect of the orthographic neighbourhood?
recognition is faster for words from large neighbourhoods
what is the phonological neighbourhood?
number of words that can be formed by changing one phoneme of a word
relates to the sound of words
eg) for ‘gait’- ‘bait’ and ‘get’
what is the effect of the phonological neighbourhood?
words with more phonological neighbours are more easily recognised
what is priming?
participant primed with a certain stimulus before the task has to be performed
who proposed the Logogen model?
Morton
what are logogens?
word detectors
what needs to be met for a logogen before it fires?
activation threshold
what are logogens activated by?
sensory input or contextual information
how does the Logogen model work?
activated by sensory input/contextual information
perceivers have many recognition units, which can recognise specific words, and information about its sound and meaning
incoming signal presented to logogens- those match the incoming information are raised in activation
activation increases until the activation level is reached= fires
word is recognised an information about the word becomes available
how does frequency affect logogens?
high frequency words have a lower threshold for firing, so are recognised more quickly
how does predictability affect word recognition?
semantic information from a sentence partially activates logogens, which lowers their threshold
decreases the amount of information needed from the word itself to fire the logogen
can be used to explain semantic priming effects
who investigated the word superiority effect?
Reicher
what happened in the word superiority effect experiment?
condition 1 ‘___K’
condition 2 ‘WORK’
didn’t know which letter would be tested
asked if they saw K or D
what were the results of the word superiority effect?
improvement in performance for the whole word compared to the single letter
suggests it is easier to identify a letter in the context of a word than in isolation
who suggested the interactive activation model?
McClelland and Rumelhart
what is the interactive activation model?
consists of a stimulus, then three levels of detectors
>feature detectors
>letter detector level
>word level detector
what are feature detectors?
detect features of a letter, such as vertical or horizontal lines
what is the letter detector level?
letters containing the activated features become activated
what is the word level detector level?
activates words beginning with the same letter
what are the two types of connections in the interactive activation model?
excitatory
inhibitory
how do connections work in the interactive activation model?
all levels are interconnected and influence eachother
connections run in both directions- evolves towards a state of activation where everything is constant
how do connections work in the interactive activation model?
all levels are interconnected and influence eachother
connections run in both directions- evolves towards a state of activation where everything is constant
how do connections work in the interactive activation model?
all levels are interconnected and influence eachother
connections run in both directions- evolves towards a state of activation where everything is constant
rules out any words which it cannot be (problem if words are mispelt)
how does transposed letter priming differ to the interactive activation model?
interactive activation model- suggests we cannot recognise mispelt words- words with two letters switched should be as difficult to recognise as words with incorrect letters in them
what is a transposed letter prime?
nonword prime constructed by transposing two adjacent word-internal letters
eg) jugde found to be easier than junpe (with unrelated letters)
what is the dual route model made up of?
direct route and indirect route
what is the direct route?
connects the visually presented word to the whole word’s mental lexicon
reader can directly access the word then pronounce it
used for high frequency or familiar words
what is the phonological route?
indirect route
generate pronunciation of words based on their written form
use grapheme to phoneme conversion rules
used for reading low frequency words/non words
what is phonological dyslexia?
difficulty reading non words
selective deficity in the phonological route
impaired grapheme to phoneme conversion rules
what is surface dyslexia?
difficulty reading irregular words
deficit in the lexical route
