Early Lexical Processing Research Articles

Letter identity and position coding in the parafovea.

Letter position coding has been extensively examined in studies of isolated word identification, spurring the development of computational models. However, these models are largely restricted to explaining word identification in foveal vision, despite the fact that early lexical processing during reading occurs in the parafovea. We report four experiments that examined the flexibility of parafoveal letter identity and position coding using a variant of the same-different match task. Participants matched transposed- and substituted-letter strings to reference words, with the former being displayed at various retinal eccentricities for 100 ms versus 300 ms to respectively preclude or allow eye movements. The first pair of experiments demonstrated the relative difficulty of coding parafoveal letter positions as compared to their identities, as well as the standard benefit in identifying words displayed in the right visual field. The second pair of experiments further demonstrated that the location of letter-position uncertainty (i.e., transposed letters) interacts with both eccentricity and visual field. Initial letter transpositions were more easily detected in the left visual field, whereas transpositions of the final letters were more accurately detected in the right visual field. As discussed, these results are challenging for existing models of reading, which can individually account for some of our findings but not the results in their entirety. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Direct lexical control of eye movements in Chinese reading: Evidence from the co-registration of EEG and eye tracking

The direct-lexical-control hypothesis stipulates that some aspect of a word’s processing determines the duration of the fixation on that word and/or the next. Although the direct lexical control is incorporated into most current models of eye-movement control in reading, the precise implementation varies and the assumptions of the hypothesis may not be feasible given that lexical processing must occur rapidly enough to influence fixation durations. Conclusive empirical evidence supporting this hypothesis is therefore lacking. In this article, we report the results of an eye-tracking experiment using the boundary paradigm in which native speakers of Chinese read sentences in which target words were either high- or low-frequency and preceded by a valid or invalid preview. Eye movements were co-registered with electroencephalography, allowing standard analyses of eye-movement measures, divergence point analyses of fixation-duration distributions, and fixated-related potentials on the target words. These analyses collectively provide strong behavioral and neural evidence of early lexical processing and thus strong support for the direct-lexical-control hypothesis. We discuss the implications of the findings for our understanding of how the hypothesis might be implemented, the neural systems that support skilled reading, and the nature of eye-movement control in the reading of Chinese versus alphabetic scripts.

Does meaningful background speech modulate predictability effects during Chinese reading?

ABSTRACT Previous research indicates that background speech disrupts reading comprehension processes, but it remains unclear whether the disruption derives from semantic or phonological speech properties, and whether it affects early lexical processing or later sentence integration. Native Chinese speaking participants read sentences containing high- or low-predictability words under meaningful Chinese speech, meaningless Uyghur speech or silence conditions. Results showed that Chinese but not Uyghur speech produced increased total fixations compared to reading in silence, suggesting disruption was semantic in nature. While a standard predictability effect was comparable across background speech conditions in target word analyses, this effect disappeared in the Chinese speech condition in later measures and regions. The findings suggest that Chinese background speech may delay higher order (post-lexical) processing associated with sentence integration during reading, with implications for the Interference-by-Process hypothesis.

Probing early lexical and morphological processing in Dutch with the MMN response

The past tense inflection has been a popular phenomenon to study the representational status of morphologically complex words. While several experiments in the processing of past tense verbs across languages have shown these verbs are stored via their constituent morphemes, experiments in the processing of the Dutch past tense indicate that these words are lexically stored in their surface form and therefore not decomposed. However, the experiments in Dutch past tense processing have not made use of experimental paradigms that can tap the earliest stages of word processing, where some theories predict decomposition would take place. We used the mismatch negativity response to study the representational status of monomorphemic and morphologically complex Dutch words. We were able to obtain different responses for monomorphemic and morphologically complex words, suggesting these are processed by different mechanisms. We cannot, however, discard the possibility that some past tense forms in Dutch do have surface form representations.

Does speed‐reading training work, and if so, why? Effects of speed‐reading training and metacognitive training on reading speed, comprehension and eye movements

BackgroundCommercial speed‐reading training programs are typically marketed with the promise to dramatically increase reading speed without impairing comprehension. From the perspective of reading psychology, it seems quite unlikely that speed‐reading training can indeed have such effects. However, research on the effectiveness of modern speed‐reading training programs on reading performance in typical readers is sparse. The present study had two goals. First, we sought to extend prior research on speed‐reading by assessing the effects of a speed‐reading application on reading performance in a pre‐training and post‐training design with a control group. Second, we aimed to identify the mechanism underlying speed‐reading training programs.MethodsWe assessed reading speed, comprehension and eye movements of 30 German‐speaking undergraduates (Mage = 22.77 years, SDage = 3.41 years) before and after they received a commercial, app‐based speed‐reading training, a metacognitive training or no training.ResultsResults revealed higher reading speed in the speed‐reading condition and metacognitive condition compared with the control condition, although not to the extent claimed in the application. Eye‐movement data indicated that the increase in reading speed was due to fewer and shorter fixations in measures reflecting late but not early lexical processing. No differences in comprehension performance were observed between the three conditions.ConclusionsWe discuss our findings in support of the idea that the increase in reading speed was not caused by a change in basic characteristics of participants' reading behaviour, but rather by an increase in their awareness of their own reading process. Further research is needed to investigate whether the observed effects are maintained over time.

Early lexical processing of Chinese one-character words and Mongolian words: A comparative study using event-related potentials.

Logographic language and alphabetic language differ significantly in orthography. Investigating the commonality and particularity of visual word recognition between the two distinct writing systems is informative for understating the neural mechanisms underlying visual word recognition. In the present study, we compared the chronometry of early lexical processing and the brain regions involved in early lexical processing between Chinese (logographic language) and Mongolian (alphabetic language) by recording event-related potentials (ERPs) using both implicit and explicit reading tasks. Familiar Chinese one-character words (lexical) and unknown Chinese one-character words (non-lexical) were pseudorandomly presented to native Chinese readers in Experiment 1. Mongolian words (lexical) and pseudowords (non-lexical) were pseudorandomly presented to native Mongolian readers in Experiment 2. In the color decision task, participants were asked to decide the color (black or blue) of each stimulus. In the lexical recognition task, participants were asked to report whether they could recognize each stimulus. The results showed that in both experiments and both tasks, ERPs to lexical items differed significantly from those to non-lexical items in the parietooccipital scalp region approximately 250 ms after stimulus onset, reflecting the early lexical processing, which likely originated from the ventral occipitotemporal cortex as revealed by source analysis. These results indicated that although Chinese and Mongolian differed markedly in orthographic features, the neural mechanisms underlying early lexical processing are similar between the two languages.

Drivers of Lexical Processing and Implications for Early Learning

Understanding words in unfolding speech requires the coordination of many skills to support successful and rapid comprehension of word meanings. This multifaceted ability emerges before our first birthday, matures over a protracted period of development, varies widely between individuals, forecasts future learning outcomes, and is influenced by immediate context, prior knowledge, and lifetime experience. This article highlights drivers of early lexical processing abilities while exploring questions regarding how learners begin to acquire, represent, and activate meaning in language. The review additionally explores how lexical processing and representation are connected while reflecting on how network science approaches can support richly detailed insights into this connection in young learners. Future research avenues are considered that focus on addressing how language processing and other cognitive skills are connected.

Current Research on Individual Differences in Early Expressive Word Acquisition

This study reviews recent research on individual differences in early word production and examines the necessary research on this topic for children with atypical development. Previous studies on children’s early lexical processing efficiency have suggested that the formation of mental representations for lexical structure and phonological representations with language input from ambient language may be related to individual differences in children’s early expressive word acquisition. Considering the relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and early word acquisition in children, related factors, such as language experience, mind-mindedness, and sharing mental representation with their caregivers, are essential. In addition, it is necessary to confirm whether the trajectory of each factor, including fine motor skills and cognitive development in the child’s home, affects individual differences in expressive word acquisition. To date, the dynamic systems and domain-relevant approaches from the viewpoint of self-organization are still essential. Thus, by using these techniques, evidence of continuity from the pre-linguistic period, based on the viewpoint of individual differences in early word production for children with atypical development, can be obtained.

Global expectations mediate local constraint: evidence from concessive structures

ABSTRACT Numerous studies have found facilitation for lexical processing in highly constraining contexts. However, less is known about cases in which immediately preceding (local) and broader (global) contextual constraint conflict. In two eye-tracking while reading experiments, local and global context were manipulated independently, creating a critical condition where local context biases towards a word that is incongruent with global context. Global context consisted of a clause introduced by a concessive marker generating broad expectations about upcoming material. Experiment 1 compared high- and low-predictability critical words, whereas Experiment 2 held the critical word constant and manipulated the preceding verb to impose different levels of local constraint. Facilitation from local context was reduced when it was incongruent with global context, supporting models in which information from global and local context is rapidly integrated during early lexical processing over models that would initially prioritise only local or only global context.

Visual event-related potentials reveal the early lexical processing of Chinese characters

Logographic scripts such as Chinese differ markedly from alphabetic scripts. The time-course of the lexical processing of alphabetic words was widely studied by recording event-related potentials (ERPs), and the results indicated that alphabetic words are rapidly and automatically processed. This study investigated whether there is also rapid and automatic lexical processing of Chinese characters by recording ERPs. High-frequency (HF) characters and orthographically similar low-frequency (LF) characters were pseudo-randomly presented to proficient Chinese readers. The color of half of the characters was blue and the color of the other half was black. In the color decision task, participants were asked to determine the color of each character. In the lexical recognition task, participants were asked to report whether s/he knew each character (the LF characters in this study were very rare characters which were usually not recognized by proficient Chinese readers). In both tasks, the N170 elicited by HF characters peaked earlier than the N170 elicited by LF characters in the right parieto-occipital area (PO8), and the ERPs to HF characters diverged from the ERPs to LF characters around 210–222 ms after the stimulus onset. These results reflected the rapid and automatic lexical processing of Chinese characters. Source analysis results suggested that the left and the right occipitotemporal cortices and the right visual cortex were the neural origins of the early lexical processing of Chinese characters, and the peak activation was in the right visual cortex.

Should I stay or should I go? An ERP analysis of two-choice versus go/no-go response procedures in lexical decision.

Prior behavioral experiments across a variety of tasks have typically shown that the go/no-go procedure produces not only shorter response times and/or fewer errors than the two-choice procedure, but also yields a higher sensitivity to experimental manipulations. To uncover the time course of information processing in the go/no-go versus the two-choice procedures during visual word recognition, we examined the impact of a lexical factor (word frequency) in a lexical-decision task by tracking event-related potential (ERP) waves. If the differences across response procedures influence relatively early lexical processing stages, we would expect word frequency to induce differences across tasks in the early epochs of the ERP. Alternatively, if the differences across response procedures only occur at a postaccess response selection stage, we would only expect differences across procedures in late time windows of the ERP. Results showed that the word-frequency effect occurred earlier (starting around 200 ms poststimuli) in the go/no-go than in the two-choice response procedure. These results support the view of a largely flexible cognitive network in which a subtle manipulation of the response procedure can affect early components of processing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Early lexical processing of Chinese words indexed by Visual Mismatch Negativity effects

Although Mismatch Negativity (MMN) effects indicating early, automatic lexical processing have been reported in the auditory language modality, so far these have not been reliably obtained in MMN studies of visual word recognition. The present study explores this discrepancy by investigating whether visual MMN (vMMN) effects can be obtained in written Chinese single-character word recognition. While participants were engaged in a non-linguistic distraction task, we measured Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) time-locked to perifoveally-presented real and pseudo- characters matched in overall visual-orthographic attributes. VMMN was defined as significant difference between the ERPs to characters presented as deviants or as standards in a context of non-characters. For the native Chinese readers, af ter sub-lexical structural detection from 120–160 ms, only real characters elicited vMMN at the interval of 170–210 ms, suggesting that lexical information in Chinese words is processed early and automatically. In a later window of 340–380 ms, both real and pseudo- characters yielded vMMNs. In a control group of non-Chinese participants, no evidence of vMMN was found for either real or pseudo-characters. Taken together, these results suggest that long-term memory representations for real characters may enable their early processing even in unattended conditions.

Parafoveal preview effects depend on both preview plausibility and target predictability.

Recent studies using the boundary paradigm have shown that readers benefit from a parafoveal preview of a plausible continuation of the sentence. This plausibility preview effect occurs irrespective of the semantic or orthographic relatedness of the preview and target word, suggesting that it depends on the degree to which a preview word fits the preceding context. The present study tested this hypothesis by examining the impact of contextual constraint on processing a plausible word in the parafovea. Participants' eye movements were recorded as they read sentences in which a target word was either highly predictable or unpredictable. The boundary paradigm was used to compare predictable, unpredictable, and implausible previews. The results showed that target predictability significantly modulated the effects of identical and plausible previews. Identical previews yielded significantly more benefit than plausible previews for highly predictable targets, but for unpredictable targets a plausible preview was as beneficial as an identical preview. The results shed light on the role of contextual predictability in early lexical processing. Furthermore, these data support the view that readers activate a set of appropriate words from the preceding sentence context, prior to the presentation of the target word.

Beyond cloze probability: Parafoveal processing of semantic and syntactic information during reading

Abstract Theories of eye movement control in reading assume that early oculomotor decisions are determined by a word’s frequency and cloze probability. This assumption is challenged by evidence that readers are sensitive to the contextual plausibility of an upcoming word: First-pass fixation probability and duration are reduced when the parafoveal preview is a plausible, but unpredictable, word relative to an implausible word. The present study sought to establish whether the source of this effect is sensitivity to violations of syntactic acceptability. In two experiments, the gaze-contingent boundary paradigm was used to compare contextually plausible previews to semantically acceptable and anomalous previews that either matched or violated syntactic rules. Results showed that readers benefited from the convergence of semantic and syntactic acceptability early enough in the timecourse of reading to affect skipping. In addition, both semantic and syntactic plausibility yielded preview effects on target fixation duration measures, providing direct evidence of parafoveal syntactic processing in reading. These results highlight the limitations of relying solely on cloze probability to index contextual influences on early lexical processing. The implications of the data for models of eye movement control and language comprehension are discussed.

Spoken word recognition in young tone language learners: Age-dependent effects of segmental and suprasegmental variation

The majority of the world’s languages rely on both segmental (vowels, consonants) and suprasegmental (lexical tones) information to contrast the meanings of individual words. However, research on early language development has mostly focused on the acquisition of vowel-consonant languages. Developmental research comparing sensitivity to segmental and suprasegmental features in young tone learners is extremely rare. This study examined 2- and 3-year-old monolingual tone learners’ sensitivity to vowels and tones. Experiment 1a tested the influence of vowel and tone variation on novel word learning. Vowel and tone variation hindered word recognition efficiency in both age groups. However, tone variation hindered word recognition accuracy only in 2-year-olds, while 3-year-olds were insensitive to tone variation. Experiment 1b demonstrated that 3-year-olds could use tones to learn new words when additional support was provided, and additionally, that Tone 3 words were exceptionally difficult to learn. Experiment 2 confirmed a similar pattern of results when children were presented with familiar words. This study is the first to show that despite the importance of tones in tone languages, vowels maintain primacy over tones in young children’s word recognition and that tone sensitivity in word learning and recognition changes between 2 and 3years of age. The findings suggest that early lexical processes are more tightly constrained by variation in vowels than by tones.

Electrifying the lexical decision

The current research utilizes lexical decision within an oddball ERP paradigm to study early lexical processing. Nineteen undergraduate students completed four blocks of the oddball lexical decision task (Nonword targets among Words, Word targets among Nonwords, Word targets among Pseudowords, and Pseudoword targets among Words). We observed a reliable P3 ERP component in conditions where the distinction between rare and frequent trials could be made solely based on lexical status (Words among Nonwords and Nonwords among Words). We saw a reliable P3 to rare words among frequent pseudowords, but no P3 was observed when participants were asked to detect pseudowords in the context of frequent word stimuli. We argue that this observed modulation of the P3 results is consistent with psycholinguistic literature that suggests that two criteria are available during lexical access when performing a lexicality judgement, a non-lexical criterion that relies on global activation at the word level and a lexical criterion that relies on activation of a lexical representation (Coltheart, Rastle, Perry, Langdon, & Ziegler, 2001; Grainger & Jacobs, 1996).

Vowel bias in Danish word-learning: processing biases are language-specific.

The present study explored whether the phonological bias favoring consonants found in French-learning infants and children when learning new words (Havy & Nazzi, 2009; Nazzi, 2005) is language-general, as proposed by Nespor, Peña and Mehler (2003), or varies across languages, perhaps as a function of the phonological or lexical properties of the language in acquisition. To do so, we used the interactive word-learning task set up by Havy and Nazzi (2009), teaching Danish-learning 20-month-olds pairs of phonetically similar words that contrasted either on one of their consonants or one of their vowels, by either one or two phonological features. Danish was chosen because it has more vowels than consonants, and is characterized by extensive consonant lenition. Both phenomena could disfavor a consonant bias. Evidence of word-learning was found only for vocalic information, irrespective of whether one or two phonological features were changed. The implication of these findings is that the phonological biases found in early lexical processing are not language-general but develop during language acquisition, depending on the phonological or lexical properties of the native language.

Responding to nonwords in the lexical decision task: Insights from the English Lexicon Project.

Researchers have extensively documented how various statistical properties of words (e.g., word frequency) influence lexical processing. However, the impact of lexical variables on nonword decision-making performance is less clear. This gap is surprising, because a better specification of the mechanisms driving nonword responses may provide valuable insights into early lexical processes. In the present study, item-level and participant-level analyses were conducted on the trial-level lexical decision data for almost 37,000 nonwords in the English Lexicon Project in order to identify the influence of different psycholinguistic variables on nonword lexical decision performance and to explore individual differences in how participants respond to nonwords. Item-level regression analyses reveal that nonword response time was positively correlated with number of letters, number of orthographic neighbors, number of affixes, and base-word number of syllables, and negatively correlated with Levenshtein orthographic distance and base-word frequency. Participant-level analyses also point to within- and between-session stability in nonword responses across distinct sets of items, and intriguingly reveal that higher vocabulary knowledge is associated with less sensitivity to some dimensions (e.g., number of letters) but more sensitivity to others (e.g., base-word frequency). The present findings provide well-specified and interesting new constraints for informing models of word recognition and lexical decision.

Early processing of auditory lexical predictions revealed by ERPs

Auditory lexical processing starts within 200ms after onset of the critical stimulus. Here, we used electroencephalography (EEG) to investigate whether (1) the so-called N200 effect can be triggered by single-item lexical context, and (2) such effects are robust against temporal violations of the signal. We presented items in which lexical status (i.e., is the stimulus a word or a pseudoword?) was determined at third syllable onset. The critical syllable could be naturally timed or delayed (by ∼440 or ∼800ms). Across all conditions, we observed an effect of lexicality that started ∼200ms after third syllable onset (i.e., an N200 effect in naturally timed items and a similar effect superimposed on the P2 for the delayed items). The results indicate that early lexical processes are robust against violations of temporal coherence.

Memory Encoding Processes in Young and Old Adults

Context: Information processing requires a series of mental operations from encoding to storage and retrieval. A large number of studies have examined the retrieval process, but less attention has been paid to the encoding process. Evidence Acquisition: The aims of this paper were to provide an overview of perceptual and semantic encoding processes as well as identify and compare the structural and functional changes in the memory encoding process of young and old adults. A review of encoding was conducted based on findings from two recent memory encoding studies and a literature search on memory encoding. It included studies published from January 1980 to December 2013 and appeared in the databases of CINAHL, MEDLINE, AMED, Journals@Ovid and the ISI Web of Science. Results: Five stages of encoding were identified. They were: 1) early perceptual processing; 2) prelexical feature detection and early lexical processing; 3) initial selection of information from competing information for processing in the working memory; 4) semantic, syntactic, or lexical processing; and 5) updating of working memory with the newly created item representation and elaborate processing. Perceptual encoding appears to be modulated by sensory cortices, in which stimuli are initially perceived and processed, whereas semantic encoding involves the left prefrontal cortex temporal regions by both verbal and nonverbal stimuli. Conclusions: Early perceptual processing and the selection of information processes associated with memory encoding are comparable between young and old adults. However, they showed differences in semantic processing, updating of working memory, and elaborate processing. These differences might be due to reduced volume and functional capacity of the hippocampus and frontal lobes, shrinkage in the white matter and its associated tracts, as well as inability of the aging brain to produce levels of dopamine comparable to its previous levels.