Components Of Word Recognition Research Articles

Assessing Low-level Cognitive Processes of Word Recognition

A fundamental skill required for vocabulary development is word recognition ability. According to Perfetti (1985), word recognition ability relies on low-level cognitive processing skill to be automatic and efficient in order for cognitive resources to be allocated to high-level processes such as inferencing and schemata activation needed for reading comprehension. The low-level processes include orthographic knowledge, semantic knowledge, and phonological awareness. These low-level processes must be efficient, fluent, and automatic in second language readers in order for them to achieve the ultimate goal of reading comprehension. This article briefly describes the concept of word recognition, its relation to vocabulary, and three tests that were designed to measure the three components of word recognition (orthographic, semantic, and phonological knowledge) in a longitudinal study that investigated the effects of word recognition training on reading comprehension.

Different neural mechanisms for rapid acquisition of words with grammatical tone in learners from tonal and non-tonal backgrounds: ERP evidence

Initial second language acquisition proceeds surprisingly quickly. Foreign words can sometimes be used within minutes after the first exposure. Yet, it is unclear whether such rapid learning also takes place for more complex, multi-layered properties like words with complex morphosyntax and/or tonal features, and whether it is influenced by transfer from the learners’ native language. To address these questions, we recorded tonal and non-tonal learners’ brain responses while they acquired novel tonal words with grammatical gender and number on two consecutive days. Comparing the novel words to repeated but non-taught pseudoword controls, we found that tonal learners demonstrated a full range of early and late event-related potentials in novel tonal word processing: an early word recognition component (~50 ms), an early left anterior negativity (ELAN), a left anterior negativity (LAN), and a P600. Non-tonal learners exhibited mainly late processing when accessing the meaning of the tonal words: a P600, as well as a LAN after an overnight consolidation. Yet, this group displayed correlations between pitch perception abilities and ELAN, and between acquisition accuracy and LAN, suggesting that certain features may lead to facilitated processing of tonal words in non-tonal learners. Furthermore, the two groups displayed indistinguishable performance at the behavioural level, clearly suggesting that the same learning outcome may be achieved through at least partially different neural mechanisms. Overall, the results suggest that it is possible to rapidly acquire words with grammatical tone and that transfer plays an important role even in very early second language acquisition.

Automaticity of word recognition is a unique predictor of reading fluency in middle-school students.

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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)

Acoustic–Phonetic Versus Lexical Processing in Nonnative Listeners Differing in Their Dominant Language

Nonnative listeners have difficulty recognizing English words due to underdeveloped acoustic-phonetic and/or lexical skills. The present study used Boothroyd and Nittrouer's (1988)j factor to tease apart these two components of word recognition. Participants included 15 native English and 29 native Russian listeners. Fourteen and 15 of the Russian listeners reported English (ED) and Russian (RD) to be their dominant language, respectively. Listeners were presented 119 consonant-vowel-consonant real and nonsense words in speech-spectrum noise at +6 dB SNR. Responses were scored for word and phoneme recognition, the logarithmic quotient of which yielded j. Word and phoneme recognition was comparable between native and ED listeners but poorer in RD listeners. Analysis of j indicated less effective use of lexical information in RD than in native and ED listeners. Lexical processing was strongly correlated with the length of residence in the United States. Language background is important for nonnative word recognition. Lexical skills can be regarded as nativelike in ED nonnative listeners. Compromised word recognition in ED listeners is unlikely a result of poor lexical processing. Performance should be interpreted with caution for listeners dominant in their first language, whose word recognition is affected by both lexical and acoustic-phonetic factors.

Reading component skills in dyslexia: word recognition, comprehension and processing speed.

The cognitive model of reading comprehension (RC) posits that RC is a result of the interaction between decoding and linguistic comprehension. Recently, the notion of decoding skill was expanded to include word recognition. In addition, some studies suggest that other skills could be integrated into this model, like processing speed, and have consistently indicated that this skill influences and is an important predictor of the main components of the model, such as vocabulary for comprehension and phonological awareness of word recognition. The following study evaluated the components of the RC model and predictive skills in children and adolescents with dyslexia. 40 children and adolescents (8–13 years) were divided in a Dyslexic Group (DG; 18 children, MA = 10.78, SD = 1.66) and control group (CG 22 children, MA = 10.59, SD = 1.86). All were students from the 2nd to 8th grade of elementary school and groups were equivalent in school grade, age, gender, and IQ. Oral and RC, word recognition, processing speed, picture naming, receptive vocabulary, and phonological awareness were assessed. There were no group differences regarding the accuracy in oral and RC, phonological awareness, naming, and vocabulary scores. DG performed worse than the CG in word recognition (general score and orthographic confusion items) and were slower in naming. Results corroborated the literature regarding word recognition and processing speed deficits in dyslexia. However, dyslexics can achieve normal scores on RC test. Data supports the importance of delimitation of different reading strategies embedded in the word recognition component. The role of processing speed in reading problems remain unclear.

P02.195 Electrophysiological correlates of impaired components of word recognition in depression

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Coordinating Transcription and Text Generation in Working Memory during Composing: Automatic and Constructive Processes

Research evidence is reviewed to show (a) that transcription and working memory processes constrain the development of composition skills in students with and without learning disabilities; and (b) that in turn other processes constrain the development of transcription and working memory skills. The view of working memory as a resource-limited process is contrasted with a view of working memory as a resource-coordination process that integrates transcription and constructive processes, which may be on different time scales, in real time. Theory-driven, research-validated interventions for transcription are discussed with a focus on how training transcription transfers to improved composition. Five theoretical explanations for why the spelling component of transcription is more difficult to learn than the word recognition component of reviewing are also considered with a focus on the instructional implications of each for improving spelling. Finally, a rationale is presented for directing writing instruction to the simultaneous goals of (a) automaticity of low-level transcription and (b) high-level construction or meaning for purposeful communication.

Phonological and orthographic components of word recognition. A PET- rCBF study

Pronunciation (of irregular/inconsistent words and of pseudowords) and lexical decision-making tasks were used with 15O PET to examine the neural correlates of phonological and orthographic processing in 14 healthy right-handed men (aged 18-40 years). Relative to a visual-fixation control task, all four experimental tasks elicited a left-lateralized stream of activation involving the lingual and fusiform gyri, perirolandic cortex, thalamus and anterior cingulate. Both pronunciation tasks activated the left superior temporal gyrus, with significantly greater activation seen there during phonological (pseudoword) than during orthographic (real word) pronunciation. The left inferior frontal cortex was activated by both decision-making tasks; more intense and widespread activation was seen there during phonological, than during orthographic, decision making, with the activation during phonological decision-making extending into the left insula. Correlations of reference voxels in the left superior temporal gyrus and left inferior frontal region with the rest of the brain were highly similar for the phonological and orthographic versions of each task type. These results are consistent with connectionist models of reading, which hypothesize that both real words and pseudowords are processed within a common neural network.

Development of Phonological and Orthographic Skill: A 2-Year Longitudinal Study of Dyslexic Children

Twenty-one dyslexic children, ages 9-15, were administered a battery of tests on two occasions separated by 2 years to assess the development of word recognition and spelling. The majority of the subjects were receiving intensive small-group instruction and one-on-one tutoring in reading and writing. Correlational and regression analyses supported the assumption that phonological and orthographic processing are distinct but reciprocally related components of word recognition and spelling. However, phonological skill appeared to capture most of the unique variance in word identification for dyslexics and younger normal readers matched on word identification skill. Although the dyslexic children made significant gains over 2 years in overall word identification skill and in aspects of phonological and orthographic processing, they failed to show significant "catchup" in any component skills relative to age- and reading-level-matched normal readers. In addition, dyslexics made little or no progress on a measure of phonemic analysis, on a decoding task requiring processing at the level of the phoneme, and at spelling words with unusual and irregular orthography. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that dyslexic children have primary deficits in phonological processing of speech and print and secondary deficits in orthographic processing.

Machine recognition of printed Arabic text utilizing natural language morphology

We describe a computer system for recognizing the printed Arabic text of multifonts. The system contains four components: acquisition, segmentation, character recognition and word recognition. The word recognition component includes two sub-systems: a morphological spelling checker/correcter, and a morphological word recognizer. With a 95·5% character recognition rate corresponding to an 81·58% word recognition rate, tests have resulted in an increase in the rate of word recognition by 6·97% using the proposed morphologically based method.

Machine recognition and correction of printed Arabic text

A method for automatic recognition of a multifont Arabic text entered from a scanner of 300 dpi density is presented. The system is based on two components, one for character recognition and one for word recognition. Character recognition is further divided into three phases: the digitization process, segmentation of words into characters, and identification of characters. The word recognition component is based on the Viterbi algorithm and can handle some identification errors. Character recognition was achieved despite several impeding properties of the Arabic script, especially the connectivity of characters. The processing speed is close to three characters per second with a 90% recognition rate. All algorithms were written in Pascal and run on an IBM PC/AT.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>

Encoding and contextual components of word recognition in good and poor readers

Good and poor readers from the third and sixth grades (9- and 12-year-olds, respectively), named visually presented words as rapidly as possible. Words were in clear or degraded form, and were preceded by related or unrelated words. Poor readers were hurt more by degradation than were good readers, and showed greater benefit from context. In general, the contextual benefit was greater with degraded words than with intact, and this interaction was especially pronounced in the poor readers. The results are consistent with an interactive-compensatory model of word recognition. Under conditions in which stimulus encoding is slow, contextual factors may compensate for this encoding deficit.

A recognition test of vocabulary using signal-detection measures, and some correlates of word and nonword recognition

In the first of three experiments, university undergraduates were presented a list of 300 words and 100 nonwords in two sessions. Their confidence that an item was a word was indicated for each item on a 6-point scale. This experiment demonstrated the feasibility of creating a recognition test of vocabulary. In Expeiment II, 100 items were chosen to form a subtest, and the subtest was cross-validated on a new sample of subjects. The tests in Experiments I and II were scored using signal-detection measures. The primary criterion, SAT (verbal) scores, correlated approximately .60 with the test scores. In Experiment III subjects scaled the words and nonwords for four psychological attributes. These were submitted to a stepwise regression with the confidence ratings from Experiment I as the dependent variable. It was concluded that associability. frequency, orthography, and pronounceability all may be components of word recognition. However, only frequency was found to be a significant predictor of the confidence of recognition of nonwords.