In this study, we looked at masked morphological priming effects in German children and adults beyond mean response times by taking into account response time distributions. We conducted an ...experiment comparing suffixed word primes (kleidchen-KLEID), suffixed nonword primes (kleidtum-KLEID), nonsuffixed nonword primes (kleidekt-KLEID), and unrelated controls (träumerei-KLEID). The pattern of priming in adults showed facilitation from suffixed words, suffixed nonwords, and nonsuffixed nonwords relative to unrelated controls, and from both suffixed conditions relative to nonsuffixed nonwords, thus providing evidence for morpho-orthographic and embedded stem priming. Children also showed facilitation from real suffixed words, suffixed nonwords, and nonsuffixed nonwords compared to unrelated words, but no difference between the suffixed and nonsuffixed conditions, thus suggesting that German elementary school children do not make use of morpho-orthographic segmentation. Interestingly, for all priming effects, a shift of the response time distribution was observed. Consequences for theories of morphological processing are discussed.
Children have been found to use units such as syllables and morphemes in fine-grained reading processes, before they transition to a coarse-grained, holistic route. Which units they prefer at ...different stages in reading development is unresolved. The present study compares the use of syllables and morphemes. Second graders, fourth graders, and adults performed a lexical decision task on multimorphemic and monomorphemic words and pseudowords that were visually disrupted either syllable-congruent or syllable-incongruent (i.e., morpheme-congruent in multimorphemic items). Syllables turned out to be the preferred unit of fine-grained processing for second graders, while fourth graders also used morphemes when morphemes were emphasized by the presentation format. Moreover, the study supports the assumption that children rely more on fine-grained processing, while adults have more coarse-grained processing.
We investigated lexical decision making in children and adults by analyzing spatiotemporal characteristics of responses involving a hand movement. Children’s and adults’ movement trajectories were ...assessed in three tasks: a
lexical decision
task (LDT), a
pointing
task that involved minimal cognitive processing, and a
symbol
task requiring a simple binary decision. Cognitive interference on motor performance was quantified by analyzing movement characteristics in the LDT and symbol task relative to the pointing task. Across age groups, movements in the LDT were less smooth, slower, and more strongly curved to the opposite response option, and these interference effects decreased steadily with age. Older children showed stronger interference effects than did adults, even though their reaction times were similar to adults’ performance. No comparable effects were found in the symbol task, indicating that task characteristics such as response mapping and decision selection alone are not able to explain the developmental differences observed in the LDT. Our results indicate substantial overlap between cognitive processing and motor execution in the LDT in children that is not captured by computational models of visual word recognition and cognitive development.
In this study, we investigated effects of morphological processing on handwriting production in beginning writers of German. Children from Grades 3 and 4 were asked to copy words from a computer ...screen onto a pen tablet, while we recorded their handwriting with high spatiotemporal resolution. Words involved a syllable-congruent visual disruption (e.g., “Gol
fer
”), a morpheme-congruent visual disruption (e.g., “Golf
er
”), or had no disruption (e.g., “Golfer”). We analyzed productions in terms of Writing Onset Duration and Letter Duration at the onset of the second syllable (“f” in “Gol.fer”) and the onset of the suffix (“e” in “Golf_er”). Results showed that durations were longer at word-writing onset only for words with a morpheme-congruent visual disruption. Also, letter durations were longer at the onset of the second syllable (i.e., “-fer”) and shorter at the onset of the suffix (i.e., “-er”) only for words with a syllable-congruent visual disruption. We interpret these findings within extant theories of handwriting production and offer an explanation for the observed effects before and during trajectory formation.
Phonological and orthographic information has been shown to play an important role in parafoveal processing in skilled adult reading in English. In the present study, we investigated whether similar ...parafoveal effects can be found in children using the boundary eye tracking method. Children and adults read sentences in German with embedded target nouns which were presented in original, pseudohomophone (PsH), transposed-letter (TL), lower-case and control conditions to assess phonological and orthographic preview effects. We found evidence of PsH preview benefit effects for children. We also found TL preview benefit effects for adults, while children only showed these effects under specific conditions. Results are consistent with the developmental view that reading initially depends on phonological processes and that orthographic processes become increasingly important.
•Balanced bilingual children demonstrate cognate facilitation in both languages.•Semantic-to-orthographic feedback is used from the beginning of reading acquisition.•Cognate effects are driven by ...language proficiency rather than by print experience.•No processing differences for homographs between languages of balanced bilinguals.•Balanced bilingual children resemble bilingual adults more than child L2-learners.
We investigated whether beginning bilingual readers activate orthographic as well as semantic representations in both of their languages while reading in one of them. Balanced bilingual third graders who were learning to read concurrently in German and English completed two lexical decision tasks, one in each language, including cognates, false friends, and matched control words. Results showed a processing advantage for cognates over controls in both languages, indicating that the facilitation effect is driven by the level of balanced language proficiency rather than by experience with print. Except for lower accuracy scores in German, false friends did not differ in their processing from controls, pointing to the presence of semantic-to-orthographic feedback already in the beginning of reading acquisition. Confirming assumptions by the bilingual interactive activation plus (BIA+) model as well as the revised hierarchical model (RHM), findings suggest that in their strategy to resolve orthographic ambiguity, balanced bilingual children are more comparable to bilingual adults than to child second-language (L2) learners.
The development of preschoolers’ language skills is influenced by literacy environments and individual differences in storybook exposure. Extant research is limited as most studies (a) investigate ...the effects on lower level language (LLL; e.g., vocabulary, grammar), but not the effects on higher level language (HLL; e.g., comprehension monitoring, narrative comprehension), and (b) focus on shared reading in the home literacy environment (HLE), but not on the child care literacy environment (CCLE) and the child as active literacy agent. We addressed these two gaps. First, we investigated the contributions of the HLE and the CCLE to the storybook exposure of 201 German preschoolers (
M
Age
= 5; 5 years). A multilevel model showed that parents’ storybook exposure was the most important predictor of children’s storybook exposure. By contrast, child care workers’ storybook exposure was not a significant predictor. Second, we explored the unique contributions of HLE, CCLE, and preschoolers’ storybook exposure to LLL and HLL skills. Multilevel models showed that children’s storybook exposure explained unique variance not only in LLL skills, but also in HLL skills. Literacy environments explained additional variance in LLL skills. In sum, our results suggest that literacy environments are differentially related to children’s storybook exposure and language skills. Our finding that children’s storybook exposure was a unique predictor of vocabulary, grammar, comprehension monitoring, and narrative comprehension indicates that shared book reading has the potential to foster a range of early literacy skills which predict reading comprehension.
Many low‐skill readers have problems with visual word recognition. In particular, low‐skill readers show a substantial nonword reading deficit that is attributed to deficits in sub‐lexical ...processing. In this study, I examined whether the nonword deficits of German 14‐year‐old low‐skill readers were associated with inefficient use of multi‐letter information. In a lexical‐decision experiment, words and nonwords were presented in standard format and in MiXeD cAsE format which has been shown to be especially disrupting for sub‐lexical processing. When the stimuli were presented in standard format, low‐skill readers showed a substantial nonword reading deficit, that is they were generally slower than high‐skill readers, but had special problems with decoding nonwords. However, when stimuli were presented in MiXeD cAsE, low‐ and high‐skill readers showed equal impairments in nonword processing. This finding indicates that low‐skill readers do not use context‐sensitive multi‐letter rules during phonological assembly in normal reading.
Text comprehension entails the construction of a situation model that prepares individuals for situated action. In order to meet this function, situation model representations are required to be both ...accurate and stable. We propose a framework according to which comprehenders rely on epistemic validation to prevent inaccurate information from entering the situation model. Once information has been integrated in the current situation model, it serves as part of the epistemic background for validating new information, leading to a stable representation. We present evidence for this view from an experiment in which participants responded to paraphrase and inference items after reading expository texts. Multinomial model analyses of the responses and multilevel analyses of the response latencies revealed that plausible information is more likely to be integrated into the situation model while information that is part of the situation model is more likely to be judged as plausible. This pattern of results suggests a close bi-directional relationship between situation models and epistemic validation.
The present study investigated whether morphological processing in reading is influenced by the orthographic consistency of a language or its morphological complexity. Developing readers in Grade 3 ...and skilled adult readers participated in a reading aloud task in four alphabetic orthographies (English, French, German, Italian), which differ in terms of both orthographic consistency and morphological complexity. English is the least consistent, in terms of its spelling‐to‐sound relationships, as well as the most morphologically sparse, compared to the other three. Two opposing hypotheses were formulated. If orthographic consistency modulated the use of morphology in reading, readers of English should show more robust morphological processing than readers of the other three languages, because morphological units increase the reliability of spelling‐to‐sound mappings in the English language. In contrast, if the use of morphology in reading depended on the morphological complexity of a language, readers of French, German, and Italian should process morphological units in printed letter strings more efficiently than readers of English. Both developing and skilled readers of English showed greater morphological processing than readers of the other three languages. These results support the idea that the orthographic consistency of a language, rather than its morphological complexity, influences the extent to which morphology is used during reading. We explain our findings within the remit of extant theories of reading acquisition and outline their theoretical and educational implications.
Developing readers of four alphabetic orthographies (i.e. English, French, German, Italian) read aloud morphologically structured and non‐morphologically structured nonwords. English is the least consistent language, in terms of its spelling‐to‐sound relationships, and the most morphologically sparse, compared to the other three. English readers showed greater morphological processing than readers of the other three languages, which suggests that the orthographic consistency of a language, and not its morphological complexity, influences the extent to which morphology is used in reading.
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