The present study is set to explore the way the orthographic distributional properties of novel written words and the number of exposures to these words affect their incidental learning in terms of ...recall and recognition. To that end, two experiments were conducted using videos with captions. These videos included written nonwords (orthographically marked language-specific items) and pseudowords (orthographically unmarked items) as captions paired to the spoken targets, presented either in isolation (Experiment 1) or within sentences (Experiment 2). Our results consistently show that items containing legal letter combinations (i.e., pseudowords) are better recalled and recognized than those with illegal combinations (i.e., nonwords). Further analysis in the recall task indicate that frequency modulates the learning of pseudowords and nonwords in a different way. The learning of pseudowords increases linearly with repetitions, while nonwords are equally learned across frequencies. These differential effects found in the recall task do not show up in the recognition task. Although participants took more time to recognize nonwords in the recognition task, increased exposure to the items similarly modulated reading times and accuracy for nonwords and pseudowords. Additionally, higher accuracy rates were found in Experiment 2, which underscores the beneficial effect of supportive visual information.
Automaticity in word recognition has been hypothesized to be important in reading development (LaBerge & Samuels, 1974; Perfetti, 1985). However, when predicting educational outcomes, it is difficult ...to isolate the influence of automatic word recognition from factors such as processing speed or knowledge of grapheme-phoneme correspondences. Cognitive models suggest automaticity could be achieved in different components of word recognition (e.g., by memorizing familiar words or by tuning the mappings between orthography, phonology or semantics). However, the contributions of each path have not been assessed. This study developed a new measure of automaticity to overcome these limitations and relates automaticity to standard outcomes. Subjects were 58 middle-school students (mean age = 13.2 years ± 8 months) with average to below-average reading comprehension. To assess automaticity with an accuracy-based measure, backward masking was used: On half the trials, items were presented for 90 ms and replaced by a nonlinguistic mask; on the other half it was presented unmasked to assess children's knowledge of the word. This was instantiated in 3 experimental tasks developed to maximize reliance on different reading mappings. Automaticity, particularly in a task stressing meaning, predicted reading fluency over and above knowledge of the relevant grapheme-phoneme mappings. Automaticity in tasks involving nonwords also predicted fluency, suggesting the possibility of automaticity in orthography to phonology mappings. Variation in automatic word recognition did not predict reading comprehension or decoding. This link between automatic written word recognition and fluency has important implications for how automaticity may be targeted to improve reading outcomes.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
This study asked whether the degree to which children recognize written words automatically predicts reading fluency, decoding, and comprehension in low-performing middle-school students. Prior work has not developed measures of automaticity that are independent of factors such as knowledge of the words and letters or general differences in speed of processing. The authors assessed automaticity by briefly presenting a written word and then covering it with a visual mask to force children to process the word rapidly; this is called backward masking. Students' levels of automaticity did not predict their ability to decode words or comprehend what they read; however, performance under masked conditions predicted reading fluency over and above their knowledge of the words and letters. These results suggest that developing automaticity in word recognition may be an important factor in middle-school students' struggles and, thus, a prime target for intervention. Backward masking may offer an innovative way to assess automaticity to identify these students.
While language switching of bilinguals has been investigated extensively in the spoken domain, there has been little research on switching while writing. The factors that impact written language ...switching may differ from those that impact language switching while speaking. Thus, the study’s goal was to test to what extent phonological and/or orthographic overlap impacts written language switching. In four experiments (NExp.1 = 34; NExp. 2 = 57; NExp. 3 = 39; NExp. 4 = 39), German–English bilinguals completed a cued language switching task where responses had to be typed. To-be-named translation-equivalent concepts were selected to be similar phonologically, orthographically or neither. Participants switching between languages while writing was facilitated by both phonological and orthographic overlap. Maximum orthographic overlap between translation-equivalent words with dissimilar pronunciations facilitated switching to the extent that no switch costs could be observed. These results imply that overlapping orthography can strongly facilitate written language switching and that orthography’s role should be considered more thoroughly in models of bilingual language production.
Experiments on coalescence are carried out with two water drops over a chemically textured superhydrophobic surface (equilibrium contact angle ~ 150° and contact angle hysteresis ~ 10°), with one ...drop initially above the other, under atmospheric conditions. Drops are of equal volumes with a combined Bond number of 0.11. The coalescence events are imaged using two synchronized high-speed cameras in orthogonal directions. As the drops coalesce, a great variety of interface shapes appear as the merged drop approaches equilibrium. The velocity components of the combined drop, and hence the wall shear stress, are estimated by curve fitting the centroidal position data. Two distinct timescales are clearly revealed. These are related to the balance of inertia forces and surface tension on one hand and a balance of inertia and viscous forces on the other. The interface shapes in the two orthogonal views are seen to be similar, indicating the process to be practically axisymmetric during the entire time period. The drop shape gradually evolves over the shorter timescale with the appearance of a positive as well as negative curvature and leads to recoil. Wall shear stresses are estimated to be quite large during the early time period. At later times, it is characterized by small amplitude damped oscillations of a merged drop dominated by viscous dissipation. The scaling law for curvature seen during neck formation corroborates the one reported for drops coalescing in free space. Further, the bulge and neck curvatures as well as the drop shapes seen in experiments are in good agreement with numerical simulation carried out in an axisymmetric coordinate system.
Graphical abstract
A key method for studying articulatory planning at different levels of phonological organization is masked-onset priming. In previous work using that paradigm the dependent variable has been
acoustic
...response time (RT). We used electromagnetic articulography to measure
articulatory
RTs and the articulatory properties of speech gestures in non-word production in a masked-onset priming experiment. Initiation of articulation preceded acoustic response onset by 199 ms, but the acoustic lag varied by up to 63 ms, depending on the phonological structure of the target. Onset priming affected articulatory response latency, but had no effect on gestural duration, inter-gestural coordination, or articulatory velocity. This is consistent with an account of the masked-onset priming effect in which the computation from orthography of an abstract phonological representation of the target is initiated earlier in the primed than in the unprimed condition. We discuss the implications of these findings for models of speech production and the scope of articulatory planning and execution.
This essay explores the Nasu or Né variety of the “Yi” writing system, used in many indigenous communities in southwest China. I argue that Né texts participate in a distinctive form of life for ...humans, ancestors, and spirits. At the levels of graph, verse, and page, textual practice traverses meaning and image to amplify ritual practices that manage relations between humans and non-humans. This analysis works against the “modernist” sense that Né texts can be understood, severed from the context of their creation, iteration, and recitation, as “literature”.
Cet essai examine la variante Nasu ou Né du système d’écriture « Yi », utilisé dans de nombreuses communautés indigènes du sud-ouest de la Chine. Je défends l’idée que les textes Né contribuent à créer une forme de vie particulière pour les humains, les ancêtres et les esprits. Aux niveaux de la graphie, du vers et de la page, la pratique textuelle traverse le sens et l’image pour renforcer les pratiques rituelles qui gèrent les relations entre humains et non-humains. Cette analyse va à l’encontre de l’idée « moderniste » selon laquelle les textes Né peuvent être pris, séparés du contexte de leur création, de leur itération et de leur récitation, comme de la « littérature ».
In this study, we investigated the direct and indirect associations of different cognitive–linguistic skills and Chinese reading comprehension in Hong Kong kindergarteners. We assessed 179 children's ...nonverbal IQ, cognitive–linguistic skills, word reading, listening comprehension, and reading comprehension. Results showed significant correlations between all variables and reading comprehension. Further path analysis results indicated that rapid automatized naming, orthographic knowledge, and morphological awareness contributed to reading comprehension via word reading. Nonverbal IQ and vocabulary knowledge were associated with reading comprehension through listening comprehension. Beyond that, nonverbal IQ and morphological awareness still contributed directly to reading comprehension. Overall, our findings elucidated the importance of nonverbal IQ and cognitive–linguistic skills within the framework of the simple view of reading in Chinese and highlighted the unique roles of nonverbal IQ and meaning‐related skills in Chinese reading comprehension, which contributed to understanding the simple view of reading in Chinese.
Through recent neuroimaging research into brain mechanisms of proficient reading and literacy acquisition in different languages, a common neural network supporting reading has been identified in ...native readers across various writing systems. However, whether the same or different brain regions are involved in learning to read a foreign language is largely unexplored. To investigate (1) neural correlates of literacy acquisition of Chinese in adults whose learning of this logographic language was relatively late, and (2) to examine which cognitive factors might be predictors of literacy acquisition that would modulate the computation demands on reading-related brain regions, native and non-native Chinese readers were recruited to participate in pronunciation and color verification tasks using Chinese pseudo-phonograms in fMRI while their sensitivity to extracting systematic regularity in nonverbal materials, as well as their IQ and working memory, was measured in a visual statistical learning (VSL) task. The results indicated that native participants activated a left lateralized reading network that is consistent with previous research on orthography-to-phonology conversion (OPC) of Chinese, while a similar but extensive network that also includes regions in the right hemisphere was engaged in the non-natives. Within this network, left inferior frontal sites were found to be crucial to the mapping of Chinese pseudo characters to potential sounds especially in non-natives. More important, only the VSL scores of native and non-native participants, but not their general cognitive abilities, were negatively correlated with the brain activities in the left inferior parietal and left inferior frontal regions, respectively, suggesting that the fundamental capacity of SL supports literacy acquisition through modulating computation demands on the brain regions associated with OPC processing, which is critical to Chinese character recognition.
•Presents neuroimaging findings on foreign literacy acquisition in Chinese.•Investigated the role of statistical learning (SL) skills in L2 learning in Chinese.•Foreign learners had less efficient orthography-to-phonology conversion in Chinese.•Statistical learning correlated negatively with activity underlying reading Chinese.•Activity in distinct brain regions correlated with SL in natives and non-natives.
Native Hawaiians vigorously embraced the written word: Hawaiian was placed into a standardized written form by American missionaries working with Hawaiian converts in the 1820s, and
a few decades ...later Hawai'i was one of the most literate nations in the world. Why did Native Hawaiians show such enthusiasm for written language? The Hawaiian commitment to texts
did not begin with the arrival of missionaries among them; in fact, Hawaiians' appreciation of the uses of textuality gave them incentive to welcome American missionaries as
teachers. Chiefs quickly seized upon written language in their attempts to control the encounter with foreigners, to favor their interests and those of their lineages, to express
their understanding of the world, and to shape that world to their ends. A close study of early texts in Hawai'i demonstrates that it is essential for scholars of the Hawaiian past
to work with Hawaiian-language sources. Furthermore, working with early texts signals how revealing it is to treat Hawaiian-language documents and the Hawaiian language itself as
important subjects of historical study in their own right, rather than just as avenues to information.
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