Orthographic Neighborhood Effects Research Articles

Orthographic neighborhood effects during lateralized lexical decision are abolished with bilateral presentation.

Words presented to the right visual field (RVF) are processed more rapidly than those in the left visual field (LVF), presumably because of more direct links to the language dominant left cerebral hemisphere. This effect is moderated by a word's orthographic neighborhood size (N), with LVF facilitation and RVF inhibition for words with a large N. Across two experiments, we sought to further examine lateralized N effects. Experiment 1 examined how hemispheric dominance for language influenced lateralized N effects, in 140 left-handers using a visual half-field task with bilateral presentation. Neither participants with a right ear advantage on a dichotic listening task nor participants with no right ear advantage showed the expected N effect, making the results ambiguous: it could be that left-handers fail to show N effects, or the effect could be abolished by some procedural aspect. Experiment 2 looked to test these options by testing 56 right-handers who responded to the same stimulus set under the original bilateral presentation condition and under unilateral presentation. N effects were found under unilateral but not bilateral presentation. We had adopted bilateral presentation because it had been recommended as better than unilateral presentation for controlling fixation and visual stimulation; our results indicate that this is not a minor methodological modification: it can dramatically affect lateralized N effects. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Supplemental Material for Orthographic Neighborhood Effects During Lateralized Lexical Decision Are Abolished With Bilateral Presentation

Supplemental Material for Orthographic Neighborhood Effects During Lateralized Lexical Decision Are Abolished With Bilateral Presentation

Task modulates ERP effects of orthographic neighborhood for pseudowords but not words

Words and pseudowords from high-density orthographic neighborhoods elicit larger amplitude N400s than similar items from low-density orthographic neighborhoods in the lexical decision task. This pattern could be interpreted as an increase in the amount of lexico-semantic information to be processed or as an increase in difficulty identifying a word (or rejecting a pseudoword) amongst many co-activated alternatives. In order to dissociate between these mechanisms, we compared neighborhood effects between a lexical decision task (LDT) and a letter search task (LST). Behaviorally, we found the standard neighborhood and lexicality effects in the LDT, but no significant effects in the LST. Thus, behavioral responses were sensitive to the decisions required by the respective tasks. Electrophysiologically, we found similar N400 neighborhood effects between tasks for words, but the N400 neighborhood effect for pseudowords was only present in the LDT. Moreover, the effect of neighborhood in the LDT occurred earlier for words than for pseudowords. These nuanced differences in the time course and automaticity of word and pseudoword neighborhood effects lend insight into the processes that underlie N400 effects of orthographic neighborhood and how they unfold over time. We propose that the early neighborhood effects for words across tasks were driven by highly automatized word identification processes that were sensitive to the lateral inhibition generated by orthographic neighbors. In contrast, the later neighborhood effects for pseudowords in the LDT could have been driven by task-specific processes tied to how global lexical activity is used to make a lexical decision.

Single Chinese Character fragments: An ERPs Study On Orthographic Neighborhood Effect

Single Chinese Character fragments: An ERPs Study On Orthographic Neighborhood Effect

Contextual constraints on lexico-semantic processing in aging: Evidence from single-word event-related brain potentials

The current study reports the effects of accumulating contextual constraints on neural indices of lexico-semantic processing (i.e., effects of word frequency and orthographic neighborhood) as a function of normal aging. Event-related brain potentials were measured from a sample of older adults as they read sentences that were semantically congruent, provided only syntactic constraints (syntactic prose), or were random word strings. A linear mixed-effects modeling approach was used to probe the effects of accumulating contextual constraints on N400 responses to individual words. Like young adults in prior work, older adults exhibited a classic word position context effect on the N400 in congruent sentences, although the magnitude of the effect was reduced in older relative to younger adults. Moreover, by modeling single-word variability in N400 responses, we observed robust effects of orthographic neighborhood density that were larger in older adults than the young, and preserved effects word frequency. Importantly, in older adults, frequency effects were not modulated by accumulating contextual constraints, unlike in the young. Collectively, these findings indicate that older adults are less likely (or able) to use accumulating top-down contextual constraints, and therefore rely more strongly on bottom-up lexical features to guide semantic access of individual words during sentence comprehension.

Recoding strategies of German learners of English as a foreign language

This study investigated whether German learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) acquire additional recoding strategies that they do not need for recoding in the consistent German orthography. Based on the psycholinguistic grain size theory (Ziegler & Goswami, 2005) we expected students with little experience in EFL to use the same small-grain recoding strategy as in German, while more advanced students were expected to switch flexibly between small and large grain size recoding strategies when reading English nonwords. German students in Grades 5, 7, and 9, as well as university students were presented with an experimental nonword reading paradigm introduced by Goswami, Ziegler, Dalton, and Schneider (2003) which assesses the effects of language (nonwords derived from German vs. English), orthographic neighborhood, item length and presentation format (blocked vs. mixed) on reading latencies and accuracies. The data were analyzed using hierarchical linear models. The youngest age group did not use larger units to read English nonwords, but mostly applied simple grapheme-phoneme translation, as they would in their first language. University students were able to switch flexibly between large- and small size recoding strategies.

Orthographic neighborhood effects in recognition and recall tasks in a transparent orthography.

The number of orthographic neighbors of a word influences its probability of being retrieved in recognition and free recall memory tests. Even though this phenomenon is well demonstrated for English words, it has yet to be demonstrated for languages with more predictable grapheme-phoneme mappings than English. To address this issue, 4 experiments were conducted to investigate effects of number of orthographic neighbors (N) and effects of frequency of occurrence of orthographic neighbors (NF) on memory retrieval of Brazilian Portuguese words. One hundred twenty-four Brazilian Portuguese speakers performed first a lexical-decision task (LDT) on words that were factorially manipulated according to N and NF, and intermixed with either nonpronounceable nonwords without orthographic neighbors (Experiments 1A and 2A), or with pronounceable nonwords with a large number of orthographic neighbors (Experiments 1B and 2B). The words were later used as probes on either recognition (Experiments 1A and 1B) or recall tests (Experiments 2A and 2B). Words with 1 orthographic neighbor were consistently better remembered than words with several orthographic neighbors in all recognition and recall tests. Notably, whereas in Experiment 1A higher false alarm rates were yielded for words with several rather than 1 orthographic neighbor, in Experiment 1B higher false alarm rates were yielded for words with 1 rather than several orthographic neighbors. Effects of NF, on the other hand, were not consistent among memory tasks. The effects of N on the recognition and recall tests conducted here are interpreted in light of dual process models of recognition. (PsycINFO Database Record

Short-term and long-term effects on visual word recognition.

Effects of lexical and sublexical variables on visual word recognition are often treated as homogeneous across participants and stable over time. In this study, we examine the modulation of frequency, length, syllable and bigram frequency, orthographic neighborhood, and graphophonemic consistency effects by (a) individual differences, and (b) item repetition. A group of 129 participants performed lexical decision and naming, in counterbalanced order, using a set of 150 Greek words in which these variables were decorrelated. Frequency, length, and syllable frequency effects were reduced by a preceding task. Length effects were inversely related to years of education. Neighborhood effects depended on the metric used. There were no significant effects or interactions of bigram frequency or consistency. The results suggest that exposure to a word causes transient effects that may cumulatively develop into permanent individual differences. Models of word recognition must incorporate item-specific learning to account for these findings.

Revisiting the incremental effects of context on word processing: Evidence from single-word event-related brain potentials.

The amplitude of the N400-an event-related potential (ERP) component linked to meaning processing and initial access to semantic memory-is inversely related to the incremental buildup of semantic context over the course of a sentence. We revisited the nature and scope of this incremental context effect, adopting a word-level linear mixed-effects modeling approach, with the goal of probing the continuous and incremental effects of semantic and syntactic context on multiple aspects of lexical processing during sentence comprehension (i.e., effects of word frequency and orthographic neighborhood). First, we replicated the classic word-position effect at the single-word level: Open-class words showed reductions in N400 amplitude with increasing word position in semantically congruent sentences only. Importantly, we found that accruing sentence context had separable influences on the effects of frequency and neighborhood on the N400. Word frequency effects were reduced with accumulating semantic context. However, orthographic neighborhood was unaffected by accumulating context, showing robust effects on the N400 across all words, even within congruent sentences. Additionally, we found that N400 amplitudes to closed-class words were reduced with incrementally constraining syntactic context in sentences that provided only syntactic constraints. Taken together, our findings indicate that modeling word-level variability in ERPs reveals mechanisms by which different sources of information simultaneously contribute to the unfolding neural dynamics of comprehension.

Orthographic and phonological neighborhood effects in handwritten word perception.

In printed-word perception, the orthographic neighborhood effect (i.e., faster recognition of words with more neighbors) has considerable theoretical importance, because it implicates great interactivity in lexical access. Mulatti, Reynolds, and Besner Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32, 799-810 (2006) questioned the validity of orthographic neighborhood effects, suggesting that they reflect a confound with phonological neighborhood density. They reported that, when phonological density is controlled, orthographic neighborhood effects vanish. Conversely, phonological neighborhood effects were still evident even when controlling for orthographic neighborhood density. The present study was a replication and extension of Mulatti et al. (2006), with words presented in four different formats (computer-generated print and cursive, and handwritten print and cursive). The results from Mulatti et al. (2006) were replicated with computer-generated stimuli, but were reversed with natural stimuli. These results suggest that, when ambiguity is introduced at the level of individual letters, top-down influences from lexical neighbors are increased.

Density and length in the neighborhood: Explaining cross-linguistic differences in learning to read in English and Dutch

Two experiments examined underlying cognitive processes that may explain why it is harder to learn to read in English than in more transparent orthographies such as German and Dutch. Participants were English and Dutch readers from Grades 3 and 4. Experiment 1 probed the transition from serial to more parallel processing, as measured by the word length effect for words and pseudowords. English children took longer to make the transition to more parallel reading strategies for words than Dutch children. In contrast, Dutch children continued to use more serial reading strategies for pseudowords. Experiment 2 investigated children’s sensitivity to the orthographic overlap between words, as measured by the size of orthographic neighborhood effects for words and pseudowords. Children reading Dutch showed greater sensitivity to the overlap between both words and pseudowords than English children. Cross-linguistic differences in the transition from serial to parallel reading strategies are discussed within the framework offered by the self-teaching hypothesis and the orthographic depth hypothesis. Finally, it is argued that differences between the two languages in the effect of orthographic neighborhood size are a result of cross-linguistic differences in orthographic density and not cross-linguistic differences in orthographic transparency.

The wide-open doors to lexical access

The wide-open doors to lexical access

Letter from the Editors

Words and pseudowords from high-density orthographic neighborhoods elicit larger amplitude N400s than similar items from low-density orthographic neighborhoods in the lexical decision task. This pattern could be interpreted as an increase in the amount of lexico-semantic information to be processed or as an increase in difficulty identifying a word (or rejecting a pseudoword) amongst many co-activated alternatives. In order to dissociate between these mechanisms, we compared neighborhood effects between a lexical decision task (LDT) and a letter search task (LST). Behaviorally, we found the standard neighborhood and lexicality effects in the LDT, but no significant effects in the LST. Thus, behavioral responses were sensitive to the decisions required by the respective tasks. Electrophysiologically, we found similar N400 neighborhood effects between tasks for words, but the N400 neighborhood effect for pseudowords was only present in the LDT. Moreover, the effect of neighborhood in the LDT occurred earlier for words than for pseudowords. These nuanced differences in the time course and automaticity of word and pseudoword neighborhood effects lend insight into the processes that underlie N400 effects of orthographic neighborhood and how they unfold over time. We propose that the early neighborhood effects for words across tasks were driven by highly automatized word identification processes that were sensitive to the lateral inhibition generated by orthographic neighbors. In contrast, the later neighborhood effects for pseudowords in the LDT could have been driven by task-specific processes tied to how global lexical activity is used to make a lexical decision.

Orthographic neighborhood effects as a function of word frequency: an event-related potential study.

The present study assessed the mechanisms and time course by which orthographic neighborhood size (ON) influences visual word recognition. ERPs were recorded to words that varied in ON and in word frequency while participants performed a semantic categorization task. ON was measured with the Orthographic Levenshtein Distance (OLD20), a richer metric of orthographic similarity than the traditional Coltheart's N metric. The N400 effects of ON (260-500 ms) were larger and showed a different scalp distribution for low than for high frequency words, which is consistent with proposals that suggest lateral inhibitory mechanisms at a lexical level. The ERP ON effects had a shorter duration and different scalp distribution than the effects of word frequency (mainly observed between 380-600 ms) suggesting a transient activation of the subset of orthographically similar words in the lexical network compared to the impact of properties of the single words.

The Sound of Enemies and Friends in the Neighborhood

Previous studies (e.g., Pecher, Zeelenberg, & Wagenmakers, 2005) found that semantic classification performance is better for target words with orthographic neighbors that are mostly from the same semantic class (e.g., living) compared to target words with orthographic neighbors that are mostly from the opposite semantic class (e.g., nonliving). In the present study we investigated the contribution of phonology to orthographic neighborhood effects by comparing effects of phonologically congruent orthographic neighbors (book-hook) to phonologically incongruent orthographic neighbors (sand-wand). The prior presentation of a semantically congruent word produced larger effects on subsequent animacy decisions when the previously presented word was a phonologically congruent neighbor than when it was a phonologically incongruent neighbor. In a second experiment, performance differences between target words with versus without semantically congruent orthographic neighbors were larger if the orthographic neighbors were also phonologically congruent. These results support models of visual word recognition that assume an important role for phonology in cascaded access to meaning.

Orthographic neighborhood size effect in Chinese character naming: Orthographic and phonological activations

The present study examined the effects of orthographic neighborhood (N) size on the cognitive processes underlying Chinese character reading. Previous research has shown increasing N size facilitates word naming and recognition performance in alphabetic languages. Experiment 1 revealed that a large N size was associated with a general inhibition of processes underlying character reading, in contrast to previous findings with alphabetic languages. This inhibitory effect was influenced by regularity and consistency. Experiment 2 sought to assess the effects of higher-frequency neighbors on character naming performance. The results revealed that higher-frequency neighbors with different pronunciation to the target interfered with the phonological retrieval of targets. We propose that this type of interference may have caused the N size effect observed in Experiment 1. The results of Experiment 3 revealed that a large N size facilitated target naming in the absence of higher-frequency neighbors. The current results shed light on the processes underlying character naming, and we propose possible cognitive mechanisms of the N size effect on Chinese character naming.

An electrophysiological investigation of cross-language effects of orthographic neighborhood

In Experiment 1 ERPs were recorded while French–English bilinguals read pure language lists of French and English words that differed in terms of the number of orthographic neighbors (many or few) they had in the other language. That is the number of French neighbors for English target words was varied and the number of English neighbors for French target words was varied. These participants showed effects of cross-language neighborhood size in the N400 ERP component that arose earlier and were more widely distributed for English (L2) target words than French (L1) targets. In a control experiment that served to demonstrate that these effects were not due to any other uncontrolled for item effects, monolingual L1 English participants read only the list of English targets that varied in the number of French (an unknown L) neighbors. These participants showed a very different pattern of effects of cross-language neighbors. These results provide further crucial evidence showing cross-language permeability in bilingual word recognition, a phenomena that was predicted and correctly simulated by the bilingual interactive-activation model (BIA+).

The Effects of the Radical Family Size and High Frequency-Phonetic Radical Family Member on Phonogram Recognition

There has an amount of researches on the question of whether the speed and accuracy with which a word is identified is affected by the existence of other orthographically similar words in alphabetic writing systems. However, it is unknown about the impacts of orthographic neighborhoods in the Chinese characters. Orthographic neighborhoods were defined as the characters with the same structure and the same semantic radicals or phonetic radicals as targets in the present study. Characters with the same semantic radicals composed the semantic radical family, while characters with the same phonetic radicals composed the phonetic radical family. There are inconsistent findings regarding the effect of semantic radical family size on phonogram recognition in the character decision tasks (CDT). The effect of high frequency phonetic radical family members which were mixed with the effect of the phonetic radical family size in the past researches should be examined independently. According to the multiple read-out model, orthographic neighborhood effects should vary as a function of the difficulty of the lexical decision task. The present study aimed to investigate whether the effects of family size, high frequency phonetic radical family members and phonological information of phonetic radical on phonogram recognition were different in the CDT with pseudo-characters or with non-characters. A total of 100 undergraduate students participated in present study. All of them were native speakers of Mandarin Chinese. The experiment was run on IBM computer using E-Prime software. A fixation point "+" was presented on the screen for 500ms, and then the target characters were displayed. Subjects were asked to perform the CDT. Both reaction time and error rate were analyzed with repeated measure ANOVA. The results indicated that:⑴ Characters included in large size semantic radical family were responded to more rapidly than characters included in small size family. The responses to characters included in large size phonetic radical family were faster than responses to characters included in small size family. ⑵ In the CDT with pseudo-characters, the lexical decision latencies to words with high frequency phonetic radical family members were slower than those to words without those members, whereas there was no inhibitory effect of high frequency phonetic radical family members in the CDT with non-characters.⑶ The effect of phonological information of phonetic radicals was not salient in the CDT with non-characters, but a pronounceable phonetic radical inhibited recognition of characters included in small size semantic radical family in the CDT with pseudo-characters. Multiple read-out model was tested and modified according to the data. These results were explained by the interactive activation model. The conclusions are directed from this study: A facilitatory radical family size effect and an inhibitory effect of high frequency phonetic radical family members on phonogram recognition were observed. These effects were mediated by the difficulty of the CDT. The effect of the phonological information of phonetic radicals was affected by the semantic radical family size and the difficulty of the CDT. It revealed an inhibitory effect of the phonological information of phonetic radicals on characters included in small size semantic radical family in the CDT with pseudo-characters.

Children Like Dense Neighborhoods: Orthographic Neighborhood Density Effects in Novel Readers

Previous evidence with English beginning readers suggests that some orthographic effects, such as the orthographic neighborhood density effects, could be stronger for children than for adults. Particularly, children respond more accurately to words with many orthographic neighbors than to words with few neighbors. The magnitude of the effects for children is much higher than for adults, and some researchers have proposed that these effects could be progressively modulated according to reading expertise. The present paper explores in depth how children from 1st to 6th grade perform a lexical decision with words that are from dense or sparse orthographic neighborhoods, attending not only to accuracy measures, but also to response latencies, through a computer-controlled task. Our results reveal that children (like adults) show clear neighborhood density effects, and that these effects do not seem to depend on reading expertise. Contrarily to previous claims, the present work shows that orthographic neighborhood effects are not progressively modulated by reading skill. Further, these data strongly support the idea of a general language-independent preference for using the lexical route instead of grapheme-to-phoneme conversions, even in beginning readers. The implications of these results for developmental models in reading and for models in visual word recognition and orthographic encoding are discussed.

Aging and Lexical Inhibition: The Effect of Orthographic Neighborhood Frequency in Young and Older Adults

The aim of this study was to examine whether the lexical inhibition underlying orthographic neighborhood effects in visual word recognition is changed with aging. To do so, orthographic neighborhood frequency was manipulated for French words that had either no higher frequency neighbor (e.g., taupe), or at least one higher frequency neighbor (e.g., the word loupe has two higher frequency neighbors, coupe and soupe). Young adults (mean age = 20.9 years) and older adults (mean age = 67.8 years) performed a standard lexical decision task. An interaction was found between age group and orthographic neighborhood frequency on word latencies. More precisely, an inhibitory effect of neighborhood frequency was observed for the young adults but not for the older ones. These data are consistent with the assumption of an age-related decline in lexical inhibition and activation. The findings are discussed in the framework of visual word recognition and aging.