The visual attention span as a measure of orthographic grain size: effects of orthograpic depth and morphological complexity.

198 p.This thesis studies some of the factors modulating the size of the orthographic units (or grains) that are used in reading. Two of these factors are reading expertise and word familiarity that are both related to whether the individual can link the orthographic units of the word to its orthographic and subsequently phonological and semantic representations in the lexicon. The thesis studies how this skill develops and the possible influence of the mappings between lexical and sub-lexical orthographic grains at the semantic/morphological and phonological level by studying the influence of orthographic depth and morphological complexity. The main goal of this thesis was to specifically study the modulation of orthographic grain size in reading, focusing on the visual aspects of orthographic processing and using the visual attention span as an indirect measure of orthographic grain size in reading. In particular, we studied the effect of a language's orthographic depth and morphological characteristics on orthographic grain size with two cross-linguistic studies (in readers of Basque, Spanish and French), and the effect of morphological structure at the word level (morphological complexity) on orthographic grain size with two studies in Basque. Our results provided support for the modulation of orthographic grain size based on orthographic depth, language morphology and morphological complexity, and for the adequacy of the visual attention span as a measure of orthographic grain size. Overall, the present thesis suggests a new perspective through which to study the visual demands and limitations imposed on orthographic processing during reading development in alphabetic orthographies.Bcdl:basque center on cognition, brain and languag

Déjà-lu: When Orthographic Representations are Generated in the Absence of Orthography

Published on 12 Jan 2023When acquiring novel spoken words, English-speaking children generate preliminary orthographic representations even before seeing the words’ spellings (Wegener et al., 2018). Interestingly, these orthographic skeletons are generated even when novel words’ spellings are uncertain, at least in transparent languages like Spanish (Jevtović et al., 2022). Here we investigate whether this process depends on the orthographic rules of the language, and specifically, whether orthographic skeletons for words with uncertain spellings are generated even when the probability of generating an incorrect representation is high. Forty-six French adults first acquired novel words via aural instruction and were then presented with words’ spellings in a self-paced reading task. Importantly, novel words were presented in their unique (consistent words) or one of their two possible spellings (preferred and unpreferred inconsistent words). A significant reading advantage observed for aurally acquired words indicates that participants indeed generated orthographic representations before encountering novel words’ spellings. However, while no differences in reading times were found for aurally acquired words with unique and those presented in their preferred spellings, unpreferred spellings yielded significantly longer reading times. This shows that orthographic skeletons for words with multiple spellings were generated even in a language in which the risk of generating an incorrect representation is high. This finding raises a possibility that generating orthographic skeletons during spoken word learning may be beneficial. In line with this conclusion is the finding showing that – in interaction with good phonological short-term memory capacity – generating orthographic skeletons is linked to better word recall.This research was supported by the Basque Government through the BERC 2022–2025 program and by the Spanish State Research Agency through BCBL Severo Ochoa excellence accreditation CEX2020-001010-S. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No: 819093 to CDM), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (PID2020-113926GB-I00; PSI2017-82941-P to CDM) and the Basque Government (PIBA18_29 to CDM). The first author was supported by a predoctoral fellowship (associated with the project PSI2017 82941-P; Grant No: PRE-2018-083946) from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and the Fondo Social Europeo

Gepo with a G, or Jepo with a J? Skilled Readers Generate Orthographic Expectations for Novel Spoken Words Even When Spelling is Uncertain

First published: 18 March 2022English-speaking children and adults generate orthographic skeletons (i.e., preliminary orthographic representations) solely from aural exposure to novel words. The present study examined whether skilled readers generate orthographic skeletons for all novel words they learn or do so only when the words have a unique possible spelling. To that end, 48 Spanish adults first provided their preferred spellings for all novel words that were to appear in the experiment. Critically, consistent words had only one, while inconsistent words had two possible spellings. Two weeks later, they were trained on the pronunciations of the novel words through aural instruction. They then saw the spellings of these newly acquired words, along with a set of untrained words, in a self-paced sentence reading task. Participants read previously acquired consistent and inconsistent words presented in their preferred spellings faster than inconsistent words with unpreferred spellings. Importantly, no differences were observed in reading untrained consistent and inconsistent words (either preferred or unpreferred). This suggests that participants had generated orthographic skeletons for trained words with two possible spellings according to their individual spelling preferences. These findings provide further evidence for the orthographic skeleton account and show that initial orthographic representations are generated even when the spelling of a newly acquired word is uncertain.This research was supported by the Basque Government through the BERC 2022-2025 program and by the Spanish State Research Agency through BCBL Severo Ochoa excellence accreditation CEX2020-001010-S. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No: 819093 to CDM), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (PID2020-113926GB-I00; PSI2017-82941-P to CDM) and the Basque Government (PIBA18_29 to CDM). The first author was supported by a predoctoral fellowship (associated with the project PSI2017 82941-P; Grant No: PRE-2018-083946) from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and the Fondo Social Europeo

The Deployment of Young Readers´ Visual Attention across Orthographic Strings: The Influence of Stems and Suffixes

Published online: 27 Apr 2020The goal of the paper was to investigate whether morphological units – stems and suffixes – influence orthographic processing by modulating visual attention demands to the task. Orthographic processing was measured with a visual one-back task requiring letters to be detected within pseudowords not including stems/suffixes, or containing real stems or real suffixes. Fourth grade children (between 9.5 and 10.5 years old) who read in a transparent orthography of a morphologically rich and agglutinative language (Basque) were tested. The results showed that the presence of morphemes in the strings did not improve letter detection performance though it slightly modulated the distribution of visual attention, showing a bias toward the processing of central letters in the presence of a stem. We suggest that the presence of highly regular and recurrent structures prioritizes stem identification, which when achieved, reduces visual attention deployment across the remaining letters.The authors acknowledge financial support from the Basque Government (PRE_2015_2_0049 to A. A.), the European Research Council (ERC-2011-ADG-295362 to M.C.), the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (PSI20153653383P to M.L., PSI20153673533R to M. C, and SEV-2015-490 awarded to the BCBL through the “Severo Ochoa Program for Centers/Units of Excellence in R&D”). This research is also supported by the Basque Government through the BERC 2018-2021

Does the visual attention span play a role in the morphological processing of orthographic stimuli?

Article first published online: October 22, 2018We investigated whether the link between visual attention (VA) span and reading is modulated by the presence of morphemes. Second and fourth grade children, with Basque as their first language, named morphologically complex and simple words and pseudowords, and performed a task measuring VA span. The influence of VA span skills on reading was modulated by the presence of morphemes in naming speed measures. In addition, fourth grade children with a larger VA span showed larger lexicality effects (pseudoword-word reading times) only for morphologically simple stimuli. Results are interpreted as support for the notion that both transparency and morphological complexity are important factors modulating the impact of VA span skills on reading.The authors acknowledge financial support from the Basque Government (PRE_2015_2_0049 to A. A.), the European Research Council (ERC-2011-ADG-295362 to M.C.), and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (PSI20153653383 P to M.L., PSI20153673533R to M. C, and SEV-2015-490 awarded to the BCBL through the “Severo Ochoa Programme for Centres/ Units of Excellence in R&D”)

One-to-One or One Too Many? Linking Sound-to-Letter Mappings to Speech Sound Perception and Production in Early Readers

Published online: Nov 4, 2022Purpose: Effects related to literacy acquisition have been observed at different levels of speech processing. This study investigated the link between orthographic knowledge and children’s perception and production of specific speech sounds. Method: Sixty Spanish-speaking second graders, differing in their phonological decoding skills, completed a speech perception and a production task. In the perception task, a behavioral adaptation of the oddball paradigm was used. Children had to detect orthographically consistent /t/, which has a unique orthographic representation (hti), and inconsistent /k/, which maps onto three different graphemes (hci, hqui, and hki), both appearing infrequently within a repetitive auditory sequence. In the production task, children produced these same sounds in meaningless syllables. Results: Perception results show that all children were faster at detecting consistent than inconsistent sounds regardless of their decoding skills. In the production task, however, the same facilitation for consistent sounds was linked to better decoding skills. Conclusions: These findings demonstrate differences in speech sound processing related to literacy acquisition. Literacy acquisition may therefore affect already-formed speech sound representations. Crucially, the strength of this link in production is modulated by individual decoding skills.This project has received funding from the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (Grant Agreement No. 819093 to C.D.M.) and under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Grant Agreement No 843533 to A.S. This work was also supported by the Spanish State Research Agency through Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language Severo Ochoa excellence accreditation CEX2020-001010-S, the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (PSI2017 82941-P and PID2020-113926GB-I00), and the Basque Government (BERC 2022-2025 and PIBA18_29). M.J. was supported by a Predoctoral fellowship (associated to the Project PSI2017 82941-P; Grant No. PRE-2018-083946) from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and the Fondo Social Europeo

The visual attention span as a measure of orthographic grain size: effects of orthograpic depth and morphological complexity.

198 p.This thesis studies some of the factors modulating the size of the orthographic units (or grains) that are used in reading. Two of these factors are reading expertise and word familiarity that are both related to whether the individual can link the orthographic units of the word to its orthographic and subsequently phonological and semantic representations in the lexicon. The thesis studies how this skill develops and the possible influence of the mappings between lexical and sub-lexical orthographic grains at the semantic/morphological and phonological level by studying the influence of orthographic depth and morphological complexity. The main goal of this thesis was to specifically study the modulation of orthographic grain size in reading, focusing on the visual aspects of orthographic processing and using the visual attention span as an indirect measure of orthographic grain size in reading. In particular, we studied the effect of a language's orthographic depth and morphological characteristics on orthographic grain size with two cross-linguistic studies (in readers of Basque, Spanish and French), and the effect of morphological structure at the word level (morphological complexity) on orthographic grain size with two studies in Basque. Our results provided support for the modulation of orthographic grain size based on orthographic depth, language morphology and morphological complexity, and for the adequacy of the visual attention span as a measure of orthographic grain size. Overall, the present thesis suggests a new perspective through which to study the visual demands and limitations imposed on orthographic processing during reading development in alphabetic orthographies.Bcdl:basque center on cognition, brain and languag

Cross-Language Modulation of Visual Attention Span: An Arabic-French-Spanish Comparison in Skilled Adult Readers

International audienceIn delineating the amount of orthographic information that can be processed in parallel during a single fixation, the visual attention (VA) span acts as a key component of the reading system. Previous studies focused on the contribution of VA span to normal and pathological reading in monolingual and bilingual children from different European languages, without direct cross-language comparison. In the current paper, we explored modulations of VA span abilities in three languages –French, Spanish, and Arabic– that differ in transparency, reading direction and writing systems. The participants were skilled adult readers who were native speakers of French, Spanish or Arabic. They were administered tasks of global and partial letter report, single letter identification and text reading. Their VA span abilities were assessed using tasks that require the processing of briefly presented five consonant strings (e.g., R S H F T). All five consonants had to be reported in global report but a single cued letter in partial report. Results showed that VA span was reduced in Arabic readers as compared to French or Spanish readers who otherwise show a similar high performance in the two report tasks. The analysis of VA span response patterns in global report showed a left-right asymmetry in all three languages. A leftward letter advantage was found in French and Spanish but a rightward advantage in Arabic. The response patterns were symmetric in partial report, regardless of the language. Last, a significant relationship was found between VA span abilities and reading speed but only for French. The overall findings suggest that the size of VA span, the shape of VA span response patterns and the VA Span-reading relationship are modulated by language-specific features