Can a connectionist model explain the processing of regularly and irregularly inflected words in German as L1 and L2?

The connectionist model is a prevailing model of the structure and functioning of the cognitive system of the processing of morphology. According to this model, the morphology of regularly and irregularly inflected words (e.g., verb participles and noun plurals) is processed in the same cognitive network. A validation of the connectionist model of the processing of morphology in German as L2 has yet to be achieved. To investigate L2-specific aspects, we compared a group of L1 speakers of German with speakers of German as L2. L2 and L1 speakers of German were assigned to their respective group by their reaction times in picture naming prior to the central task. The reaction times in the lexical decision task of verb participles and noun plurals were largely consistent with the assumption of the connectionist model. Interestingly, speakers of German as L2 showed a specific advantage for irregular compared with regular verb participles

An Investigation of Reading Development Through Sensitivity to Sublexical Units

The present dissertation provides a novel perspective to the study of reading, focusing on sensitivity to sublexical units across reading development. Work towards this thesis has been conducted at SISSA and Macquarie University. The first study is an eye tracking experiment on natural reading, with 140 developing readers and 33 adult participants, who silently read multiline passages from story books in Italian. A developmental database of eye tracking during natural reading was created, filling a gap in the literature. We replicated well-documented developmental trends of reading behavior (e.g., reading rate and skipping rate increasing with age) and effects of word length and frequency on eye tracking measures. The second study, in collaboration with Dr Jon Carr, is a methodological paper presenting algorithms for accuracy enhancement of eye tracking recordings in multiline reading. Using the above-mentioned dataset and computational simulations, we assessed the performance of several algorithms (including two novel methods that we proposed) on the correction of vertical drift, the progressive displacement of fixation registrations on the vertical axis over time. We provided guidance for eye tracking researchers in the application of these methods, and one of the novel algorithms (based on Dynamic Time Warping) proved particularly promising in realigning fixations, especially in child recordings. This manuscript has recently been accepted for publication in Behavior Research Methods. In the third study, I examined sensitivity to statistical regularities in letter co-occurrence throughout reading development, by analysing the effects of n-gram frequency metrics on eye-tracking measures. To this end, the EyeReadIt eye-tracking corpus (presented in the first study) was used. Our results suggest that n-gram frequency effects (in particular related to maximum/average frequency metrics) are present even in developing readers, suggesting that sensitivity to sublexical orthographic regularities in reading is present as soon as the developing reading system can pick it up \u2013 in the case of this study, as early as in third grade. The results bear relevant implications for extant theories of learning to read, which largely overlook the contribution of statistical learning to reading acquisition. The fourth study is a magnetoencephalography experiment conducted at Macquarie University, in collaboration with Dr Lisi Beyersmann, Prof Paul Sowman, and Prof Anne Castles, on 28 adults and 17 children (5th and 6th grade). We investigated selective neural responses to morphemes at different stages of reading development, using Fast Periodic Visual Stimulation (FPVS) combined with an oddball design. Participants were presented with rapid sequences (6 Hz) of pseudoword combinations of stem/nonstem and suffix/nonsuffix components. Interleaved in this stream, oddball stimuli appeared periodically every 5 items (1.2 Hz) and were specifically designed to examine stem or suffix detection (e.g., stem+suffix oddballs, such as softity, were embedded in a sequence of nonstem+suffix base items, such as terpity). We predicted that neural responses at the oddball stimulation frequency (1.2 Hz) would reflect the detection of morphemes in the oddball stimuli. Sensor-level analysis revealed a selective response in a left occipito-temporal region of interest when the oddball stimuli were fully decomposable pseudowords. This response emerged for adults and children alike, showing that automatic morpheme identification occurs at relatively early stages of reading development, in line with major accounts of morphological decomposition. Critically, these findings also suggest that morpheme identification is modulated by the context in which the morphemes appear

Word Knowledge and Word Usage

Word storage and processing define a multi-factorial domain of scientific inquiry whose thorough investigation goes well beyond the boundaries of traditional disciplinary taxonomies, to require synergic integration of a wide range of methods, techniques and empirical and experimental findings. The present book intends to approach a few central issues concerning the organization, structure and functioning of the Mental Lexicon, by asking domain experts to look at common, central topics from complementary standpoints, and discuss the advantages of developing converging perspectives. The book will explore the connections between computational and algorithmic models of the mental lexicon, word frequency distributions and information theoretical measures of word families, statistical correlations across psycho-linguistic and cognitive evidence, principles of machine learning and integrative brain models of word storage and processing. Main goal of the book will be to map out the landscape of future research in this area, to foster the development of interdisciplinary curricula and help single-domain specialists understand and address issues and questions as they are raised in other disciplines

Learning to recognize novel words and novel objects

Reading seems as easy and natural as listening. It is still not clear how we acquire this skill, and how visual word identification mechanisms are refined through reading experience. Theoretical models of word recognition describe general principles of skilled reading behaviour. However, these models have been based on averaged data from relatively small samples of skilled readers, mainly English native speakers, and are based on the assumption that skilled reading involves a specialized system of word identification. In this thesis it is proposed that expert reading requires the development and refinement of basic visual processing mechanisms originally employed to identify everyday objects, and then adapted to reading. To test this hypothesis, I carried out three experiments investigating: (i) how L2 visual word recognition changes with growing proficiency; (ii) how novel lexical memories are integrated into the lexicon, i.e., how they interact with previously existing words; and (iii) how sensitivity to the lexicon statistics plays out in the process of learning a novel set of visual stimuli, either in the language and non--language domain

Morphological awareness and spelling development

The aim of this thesis is to analyse the relation between morphological awareness and morphologically based spellings, in Portuguese (European Variant). Two situations where the spelling is determined by morphology are examined: when the spelling flouts letter-sound correspondence rules (consistency in the spelling of stems in base and in derived forms), and when there is more than one spelling for the same sound (discrimination in the spelling of homophone suffixes). The studies used cross-sectional (studies 1, 2 and 6) and longitudinal (studies 3, 4 and 5) designs. Study 1 examines when children from grades 1 to 4 (6- to 9-year-olds; N = 805) can take advantage of morphological information that is made available to them, implicitly, through morphological priming. The primes are base forms that share the same stem with the targets and contain well articulated, stressed vowels. The target words and pseudo-words are derived forms that contain non-stressed schwa vowels. Although differently pronounced the latter vowels are spelled consistently with those in the stems of the base forms. Primes were either oral or oral plus written. Priming effects were assessed by comparison with a non-primed condition. No priming effects were detected in 6- and 7-year-old children. Both priming conditions produced a significantly higher level of correct spelling in children 8 and 9 years of age. Oral plus written primes allowed older children to use morphological spellings in both words and pseudo-words. These results suggest that older children can use implicit morphological information to spell schwa vowels morphologically. Study 2 examined the concurrent relations between morphological awareness and morphologically based spellings. Two issues were considered: consistency in the spelling of stems in base and derived (or pseudo-derived) forms and discrimination in the spelling of words and pseudo-words ending in homophone suffixes. Children from grades 1 to 3 (6 to 8-year-olds; N = 184) participated in the study. It was found that there was a significant relation between morphological awareness and consistency in the spelling of stems in Base - Pseudo-derived stimuli, after controlling for differences in grade and IQ. Mixed results were found for the spelling of homophone suffixes. The only significant prediction obtained was between morphological awareness and discrimination in the spelling of the words ending in the homophone suffixes '-esa'/ '-eza'. In Study 3, the relation between morphological awareness and consistency in the spelling of stems is analysed, longitudinally. Children from grades 1 to 4 (6- to 9-year-olds; N = 184) were assessed in three sessions (A, B and C) each separated by six months. The results showed that some of the measures of morphological awareness could predict consistency in the spelling of stems over periods of six and of twelve months, after controlling for shared variance with Grade and IQ. This is indicative of a strong link between morphological awareness and consistency in the spelling of stems. In study 4, the relation between morphological awareness and discrimination in the spelling of words and pseudo-words ending in the homophone suffixes '-esa'/ '-eza' is analysed. The suffix '-esa' forms nouns that indicate origin or provenance. The homophone '-eza' forms abstract nouns. The participants and design were the same as in the previous study. It was found that the younger children tended to use one spelling for the two suffixes. Then, when alternative spellings were used, their assignment was unsystematic. Systematic assignment was rare even in the older children. Some measures of morphological awareness in session B, accounted for unique variance in the discrimination scores measured in session C, after controlling for differences explained by grade and IQ. In study 5, the relation between morphological awareness and discrimination in the spelling of words and pseudo-words ending in the homophone suffixes '-ice'/ '-isse' is analysed. The suffix '-ice' forms abstract nouns. The homophone '-isse' is used in the subjunctive of some verbs. The participants and design were the same as before. Correct assignment of suffixes followed the same pattern of spelling phases as described in the previous study. Significant predictions were found between sessions A and B, B and C and A and C. Some of the morphological awareness measures strongly predicted discrimination scores, after controlling for the effects of grade and IQ. Study 6 examines the spelling of older children (Grades 5, 7 and 9) and adults (student-teachers and in-service-teachers (N total = 107). The aim was to find out when consistency in the spelling of stems and discrimination of homophone suffixes were eventually achieved and whether the adult participants were aware of the morphological rules that make discrimination predictable. Consistency in the spelling of stems was only systematic in grade nine. Discrimination of the homophone suffixes '-esa'/ '-eza' was not completely systematic after sixteen years of instruction (student teachers) Discrimination of words ending in the homophone suffixes '-ice'/ '-isse' was systematic by student teachers. Discrimination in the spelling of pseudo-words was not achieved. Spelling justifications were asked from teachers. These revealed that the knowledge of morphological rules was scarce, in complete or absent. This thesis provides first evidence that older children can use morphological information that is provided, implicitly, through priming. It also shows that achieving consistency in the spelling of morphologically related stems is a long process. Systematic discrimination of homophone suffixes is even harder. However, morphological awareness was generally found to contribute strongly to the spelling, and to predict spelling outcomes, even after stringent controls for grade and IQ. Further research is necessary to examine how children develop morphologically based spellings that cannot be anchored first, in a stable phonological matrix. These results also suggest that instruction with a strong morphological rationale might significantly enhance spelling development

English lexical stress, prominence and rhythm

English speech rhythm is closely associated with the patterns of lexical stress and prominence in a stream of speech. Older varieties of English (OVEs), such as British and American English, which usually operate as the model in English language teaching, are often described as ‘stress-timed’, meaning the time between stressed syllables is more or less equal, in comparison with ‘syllable-timed’ languages (e.g., French or Cantonese), for which the time between successive syllable onsets is more or less equal. The usefulness of this distinction, however, has been disputed; e.g., Cauldwell (2002) talks about ‘functional irrythmicality’ in English speech. Cutler (1984) explains that native speakers of English focus on stressed syllables when listening to a stream of speech as part of the decoding process; i.e., for native speakers, lexical stress and the rhythm of the incoming signal play an important part in perception. Couper-Kuhlen and colleagues (e.g., Auer, Couper-Kuhlen, & Müller, 1999) have shown that speech rhythm plays an important part in the coordination of turn-taking in conversation. Anderson-Hsieh and Venkatagiri (1994) argue that speakers’ intelligibility will be affected if they do not sufficiently weaken English unstressed syllables. Such research indicates that the differences in the lexical stress and/or speech rhythm patterns of learners of English, or speakers of New Varieties of English (NVEs) which are not ‘stress-timed’, could create difficulties in comprehension and cooperative interaction for native speakers of OVEs and also, plausibly, for other speakers of English if they are using similar strategies. However, whether the majority of speakers of English in the world have a speaker of an OVE as their target interlocutor is coming increasingly under question. This chapter gives an overview of English lexical stress, prominence and speech rhythm in OVEs, including theoretical approaches to their description, and includes suggestions for pedagogical approaches for the English language classroom