Abstract
This study aimed to understand how reading ability shapes the lexicality effects on N400. Fifty-three typical developing children from the second to the sixth grades were asked to perform the pronounceability judgment task on a set of Chinese real characters (RC), pseudocharacters (PC) and non-characters (NC), as ERPs were recorded. The cluster-based permutation analysis revealed that children with low- to medium-reading ability showed greater negativity to NCs than to RCs and PCs in frontal sites from 300 to 450 ms, while children with high ability group showed a greater positivity to NCs than both RCs and PCs at central to posterior sites. Furthermore, the linear mixed model (LMM) analysis was applied to investigate the relationship between lexicality effects on N400 and reading-related behavioral assessments on a set of standardized tests (including character recognition, vocabulary size, phonological awareness, and working memory). The results found that in children with lower reading ability, the N400 elicited by NCs becomes more negative in the frontal sites. For children with higher reading ability, the N400 elicited by NCs became more positive than that elicited by RCs or PCs in the posterior sites. These findings demonstrate the developmental changes in the lexicality effects on N400 as children become more advanced readers and suggested that the lexicality effects on N400 can serve as neural markers for the evaluation of orthographic proficiency in reading development.
Highlights
Learning to read is a process of understanding written speech
These findings suggest that the concept of “wordlikeness” develops throughout the process of learning to read and that the pattern of lexicality effect may change with advancing reading ability
As more negative N400 has been associated with a greater effort in semantic retrieval or integration, absence of N400 elicited by non-words in adults suggests that they can decide that non-words violate the orthographic rules and are meaningless letter strings rather than potential words
Summary
Learning to read is a process of understanding written speech. During early years of literacy acquisition, children’s primary task is to master the orthographic rules that describe a set of orthographic units and mapping principles underlying how orthographic units encode phonology and semantics of a given writing system. Studies in alphabetic writing system have used the lexicality effect, which refers to the differences in reading words, pseudowords, and non-words, to examine the development of orthographic. Words and pseudowords are orthographically legal while non-words are orthographically and phonologically illegal random letter strings. Most importantly, Allington (1978) found that orthographic sensitivity is a direct function of reading achievement level, but not age or school experience in general. These findings suggest that the concept of “wordlikeness” develops throughout the process of learning to read and that the pattern of lexicality effect may change with advancing reading ability
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