Higher Frequency Neighbors Research Articles

Expanding the neighbourhood watch: Orthographic neighbours in isiXhosa reading and spelling

Background: Lexical properties such as orthographic neighbours have been shown to have an influence on reading and writing; however, this phenomenon is yet to be explored in the Southern Bantu languages.Objectives: We investigate the role of orthographic neighbourhood density and neighbourhood frequency in reading and spelling in Grade 3 isiXhosa home-language learners. The aim is to establish whether orthographic neighbours facilitate or hinder reading and spelling. The dual-route model of orthographic processing is used to interpret our findings.Method: Data were collected from 97 Grade 3 isiXhosa home-language learners. Lexical decision, word reading, and spelling tasks were administered. Tasks included both real and pseudowords varying in orthographic neighbourhood density and neighbourhood frequency, while controlling for word length and word frequency.Results: Findings show a significant inhibitory effect of orthographic neighbourhood frequency and word length for spelling accuracy. Longer words with higher frequency neighbours were more likely to be spelt incorrectly. No effect was recorded for the lexical decision and word reading tasks.Conclusion: Our findings suggest that spelling in isiXhosa relies partially on lexical processing strategies, which allows for the inhibitory effects of orthographic neighbours to be observed. While in reading, sublexical processing is more prominent, therefore mitigating the effect of orthographic neighbours.Contribution: Empirical evidence for the effects of orthographic neighbours, specifically in a Southern Bantu language, provides a clearer picture of the underlying cognitive-linguistic processes involved in reading and writing. This evidence may contribute to the development of targeted pedagogical practices to address spelling errors.

Processing difficulty while reading words with neighbors is not due to increased foveal load: Evidence from eye movements.

Words with high orthographic relatedness are termed "word neighbors" (angle/angel; birch/birth). Activation-based models of word recognition assume that lateral inhibition occurs between words and their activated neighbors. However, studies of eye movements during reading have not found inhibitory effects in early measures assumed to reflect lexical access (e.g., gaze duration). Instead, inhibition in eye-movement studies has been found in later measures of processing (e.g., total time, regressions in). We conducted an eye-movement boundary change study (Rayner, Cognitive Psychology, 7(1), 65-81, 1975) that manipulated the parafoveal preview of the word following the neighbor word (word N+1). In this way, we explored whether the late inhibitory effects seen with transposed letter words and words with higher-frequency neighbors result from reduced parafoveal preview due to increased foveal load and/or interference during late stages of lexical processing (the L2 stage within the E-Z Reader framework). For word N+1, while there were clear preview effects, there was not an effect of the neighborhood status of word N, nor a significant interaction. This suggests that the late inhibitory effects of earlier eye-movement studies are driven by misidentification of neighbor words rather than being due to increased foveal load.

Masked orthographic neighbor priming effects in Chinese two-character words

AbstractIn masked priming lexical decision tasks in alphabetic or syllabic script languages, latencies are longer when a word target is primed by a higher frequency neighbor (e.g., blue–BLUR) than when primed by an unrelated word of equivalent frequency (e.g., care–BLUR) – an “inhibitory neighbor priming effect.” In contrast, Zhou et al. (1999) demonstrated facilitatory orthographic neighbor priming for two-character Chinese words (e.g., 华丽–华贵). However, Zhou et al. did not control for relative prime-target frequency, which has been shown to be important in experiments when examining languages with other scripts. In the present Experiment 1 word neighbor primes (e.g., 容易-容貌) produced an inhibitory neighbor priming effect when the prime was higher frequency than the target, paralleling effects in other script languages. In further experiments, paralleling those in other script languages, two-character targets primed by nonword neighbors (容待-容貌) or single constituent characters matching the target in either position (容-容貌) showed significant facilitation. These results suggest that lexical activation/competition processes for two-character Chinese words are reasonably similar to those for words in alphabetic/syllabic script languages.

Neighborhood frequency effect on Chinese character recognition: An investigation of lexical decision tasks

Many studies have found that the orthographic neighborhood frequency (NF) effect plays a dominant role in word identification. Yet most research has been conducted on alphabetic languages rather than Chinese. We investigated the NF effect on Chinese character recognition in the context of lexical decision tasks. Experiment 1 tested the NF effect in simple characters, Experiment 2 tested the NF effect in compound characters. Results showed that targets with higher frequency neighbors had longer response latencies for both simple characters and compound characters, and that this inhibitory effect was more significant for low-frequency targets. The results overall imply there is an inhibitory NF effect existing in Chinese character recognition. The implications of the results are discussed with regard to character recognition.

Lexical competition influences correct and incorrect visual word recognition.

A growing body of research suggests that visual word recognition is error-prone, and that errors may contribute to inhibitory neighbour frequency effects in word identification and reading. The present study used the neighbourhood frequency effect to examine the relationship between lexical competition and error making during visual word recognition. A novel adaptation of the visual world paradigm (VWP) was used, in which participants selected a briefly presented printed target word from an array containing the target, its higher- or lower-frequency neighbour, an orthographic onset competitor, and an orthographically unrelated distractor word. Analyses of the visual inspection of the arrays suggested that lexical competition occurred when words were correctly identified, as competitors were preferentially viewed as a function of their orthographic similarity with the target, and higher-frequency neighbours were preferentially viewed over lower-frequency neighbours. Orthographic similarity and neighbour frequency also influenced error making. Targets were often mistaken for their neighbours, and these errors were more common for targets with higher-frequency neighbours. The time course of target and neighbour viewing for error trials also provided preliminary evidence for two kinds of errors: early-occurring, perceptual errors and later-occurring selection errors that resulted from unsuccessfully resolved lexical competition. Together, these findings suggest that neighbour frequency effects reflect the contribution of both general lexical competition and occasional errors.

Le voisinage orthographique influence la catégorisation de couleur des mots différemment selon l’âge et la vitesse de traitement

The objective of this research was to determine to what extent the effect of higher-frequency orthographic neighbourhood in a word colour-categorization task is changed during aging when processing speed is taken into account. In addition, the effect of the lexicality of the stimuli on colour categorization was examined, as well as its variation according to age and processing speed. Fifty-two young adults (Mage=21.62) and 52 older adults (Mage=66.04) participated in this study. For each age group, two sub-groups were created according to the processing speed of the participants as measured by the WAIS Coding subtest. Two conditions of words (written in red, yellow, green or blue) were presented in a colour-categorization task. Half of the words did not have any orthographic neighbours (e.g., pistil [pistil]), while the other half had a higher-frequency neighbour (e.g., tirade [tirade]/TIRAGE [draw]). A control condition with a series of Xs was added to test the influence of the effect of the lexicality of words on the colour-categorization times. As a whole, the results showed slower colour-categorization times for words compared to a series of Xs, which did not vary with age and processing speed. Importantly, the results showed that orthographic neighbourhood frequency interacted with age and processing speed, on colour categorization response times. More precisely, the neighbourhood frequency effect was found to vary differently according to processing speed in each age group. For the fastest young adults, the facilitatory effect of higher-frequency orthographic neighbourhood was obtained, whereas no such effect was found for the slowest young adults. The fastest older adults did not exhibit any effect of higher-frequency orthographic neighbourhood whereas a facilitatory effect was observed for the slowest older adults. Therefore, these data suggest that both aging and the processing speed of the participants influence the interference effect of reading on colour categorization. These findings are discussed in the context of cognitive aging theories and models of written word recognition.

Predictability eliminates neighborhood effects during Chinese sentence reading.

Previous research has demonstrated effects of both orthographic neighborhood size and neighbor frequency in word recognition in Chinese. A large neighborhood-where neighborhood size is defined by the number of words that differ from a target word by a single character-appears to facilitate word recognition, while the presence of a higher-frequency neighbor has an inhibitory effect. The present study investigated modulation of these effects by a word's predictability in context. In two eye-movement experiments, the predictability of a target word in each sentence was manipulated. Target words differed in their neighborhood size (Experiment 1) and in whether they had a higher-frequency neighbor (Experiment 2). The study replicated the previously observed effects of neighborhood size and neighbor frequency when the target word was unpredictable, but in both experiments neighborhood effects were absent when the target was predictable. These results suggest that when a word is preactivated by context, the activation of its neighbors may be diminished to such an extent that these neighbors do not effectively compete for selection.

Effects of deletion neighbourhood frequency and individual differences in lexical decision, progressive demasking, and naming.

This study investigates whether deletion neighbourhood frequency influences the processing of French written words, and whether it might also be influenced by individual differences in skilled adult readers. For this purpose, words with at least 1 higher-frequency deletion neighbour (e.g., pliage [folding]/plage [beach]) and others with no higher-frequency neighbour (e.g., morose [gloomy]) were presented in lexical decision (Experiment 1), progressive demasking (Experiment 2), and naming (Experiment 3) tasks. For each experiment, the participants' lexical skills were assessed by spelling, reading, and vocabulary tests. In Experiments 1-3, participants responded more slowly to words with at least 1 higher-frequency deletion neighbour than they did to words with no such neighbour. We also found evidence that the inhibitory effect of deletion neighbourhood frequency was sensitive to lexical skills in the naming task. These findings are discussed in terms of lexical competition underlying visual word recognition according to individual differences. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Neighborhood effects in Chinese character recognition: Going beyond phonological perspectives to explain a possible underlying mechanism

In recent years, there has been an increase of research investigating the neighborhood effect in Chinese character recognition. As for whether orthographic neighborhood size (NS) effect reveals facilitative or inhibitory results in Chinese character recognition, opinions vary and the question is still under debate. To clarify this topic, the present study implemented two experiments, the materials of which respectively were irregular-inconsistent phonograms in Experiment 1 (1A and 1B), and regular-consistent phonograms in Experiment 2 (2A and 2B). The researchers manipulated the orthographic NS and the number of higher frequency neighbors (HFNs) of the target characters, with the character frequency controlled. Results indicated that, regardless of the regularity and consistency of the stimuli, an inhibitory NS effect was observed. Moreover, in conditions of targets both with and without HFN, inhibitory NS effects were also stably displayed. This study revealed a possible underlying mechanism of the orthographic NS effect in the lexical decision task and naming task with Chinese characters, and exploited a global theoretical framework involving the neighborhood effect of characters in Chinese.

The complex interactions of context availability, polysemy, word frequency, and orthographic variables during lexical processing.

In this study we examined the interactions of context availability, polysemy, word frequency, and orthographic neighborhood variables during lexical processing. Context availability and polysemy interacted, in that words that were both lower in context availability and had fewer related senses were especially disadvantaged, as was originally reported by Tokowicz and Kroll (2007). Word frequency interacted with both polysemy and context availability, in that the effects of polysemy and context availability were stronger for lower-frequency words. Finally, orthographic neighborhood size and frequency both interacted with polysemy: the effect of polysemy was greater for words with smaller orthographic neighborhoods and a greater number of higher-frequency neighbors. These findings provide support for the context availability hypothesis (Schwanenflugel & Shoben, 1983). Specifically, the feedback activation account (Hino & Lupker, 1996) offers a mechanistic explanation of our findings that is rooted in feedback from semantic to orthographic representations.

Ageing and the misperception of words: Evidence from eye movements during reading.

Research with lexical neighbours (words that differ by a single letter while the number and order of letters are preserved) indicates that readers frequently misperceive a word as its higher frequency neighbour (HFN) even during normal reading. But how this lexical influence on word identification changes across the adult lifespan is largely unknown, although slower lexical processing and reduced visual abilities in later adulthood may lead to an increased incidence of word misperception errors. In particular, older adults may be more likely than younger adults to misidentify a word as its HFN, especially when the HFN is congruent with prior sentence context, although this has not been investigated. Accordingly, to address this issue, young and older adults read sentences containing target words with and without an HFN, where the HFN was either congruent with prior sentence context or not. Consistent with previous findings for young adults, eye movements were disrupted more for words with than without an HFN, especially when the HFN was congruent with prior context. Crucially, however, there was no indication of an adult age difference in this word misperception effect. We discuss these findings in relation to the nature of misperception effects in older age.

Not all identification tasks are born equal: testing the involvement of production processes in perceptual identification and lexical decision.

The distinction between identification and production processes suggests that implicit memory should require more attention resources when there is a competition between alternative solutions during the test phase. The present two experiments assessed this hypothesis by examining the effects of divided attention (DA) at encoding on the high- and low-response-competition versions of perceptual identification (Experiment 1) and lexical decision (Experiment 2). In both experiments, words presented in the high-response-competition condition had many orthographic neighbours and at least one higher-frequency neighbour, whereas words presented in the low-response-competition condition had few orthographic neighbours and no higher-frequency neighbour. Consistent with the predictions of the identification/production distinction, Experiment 1 showed that DA reduced repetition priming in the high-, but not in the low-response-competition version of perceptual identification; in contrast, DA had comparable effects in the two versions of lexical decision (Experiments 2). These findings provide the first experimental evidence in support of the hypothesis that perceptual identification, a task nominally based on identification processes, might involve a substantive production component.

The effect of orthographic and emotional neighbourhood in a colour categorization task.

This study investigated whether and how the strength of reading interference in a colour categorization task can be influenced by lexical competition and the emotional characteristics of words not directly presented. Previous findings showed inhibitory effects of high-frequency orthographic and emotional neighbourhood in the lexical decision task. Here, we examined the effect of orthographic neighbour frequency according to the emotional valence of the higher-frequency neighbour in an emotional orthographic Stroop paradigm. Stimuli were coloured neutral words that had either (1) no orthographic neighbour (e.g. PISTIL [pistil]), (2) one neutral higher-frequency neighbour (e.g. tirade [tirade]/TIRAGE [draw]) or (3) one negative higher-frequency neighbour (e.g. idiome [idiom]/IDIOTE [idiotic]). The results showed that colour categorization times were longer for words with no orthographic neighbour than for words with one neutral neighbour of higher frequency and even longer when the higher-frequency neighbour was neutral rather than negative. Thus, it appears not only that the orthographic neighbourhood of the coloured stimulus words intervenes in a colour categorization task, but also that the emotional content of the neighbour contributes to response times. These findings are discussed in terms of lexical competition between the stimulus word and non-presented orthographic neighbours, which in turn would modify the strength of reading interference on colour categorization times.

The Effect of Orthographic Neighborhood in the Reading Span Task

This study aimed at examining whether and to what extent orthographic neighborhood of words influences performance in a working memory span task. Twenty-five participants performed a reading span task in which final words to be memorized had either no higher frequency orthographic neighbor or at least one. In both neighborhood conditions, each participant completed three series of two, three, four, or five sentences. Results indicated an interaction between orthographic neighborhood and list length. In particular, an inhibitory effect of orthographic neighborhood on recall appeared in list length 5. A view is presented suggesting that words with higher frequency neighbors require more resources to be memorized than words with no such neighbors. The implications of the results are discussed with regard to memory processes and current models of visual word recognition.

Do masked orthographic neighbor primes facilitate or inhibit the processing of Kanji compound words?

In the masked priming paradigm, when a word target is primed by a higher frequency neighbor (e.g., blue-BLUR), lexical decision latencies are slower than when the same word is primed by an unrelated word of equivalent frequency (e.g., care-BLUR). This inhibitory neighbor priming effect (e.g., Davis & Lupker, 2006; Segui & Grainger, 1990) is taken as evidence for the lexical competition process that is an important component of localist activation-based models of visual word recognition (Davis, 2003; Grainger & Jacobs, 1996; McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981). The present research looked for evidence of an inhibitory neighbor priming effect using words written in Japanese Kanji, a logographic, nonalphabetic script. In 4 experiments (Experiments 1A, 1B, 3A, and 3B), inhibitory neighbor priming effects were observed for low-frequency targets primed by higher frequency Kanji word neighbors ([symbol in text]). In contrast, there was a significant facilitation effect when targets were primed by Kanji nonword neighbors ([symbols in text]; Experiments 2 and 3). Significant facilitation was also observed when targets were primed by single constituent Kanji characters ([symbols in text]; Experiment 4). Taken together, these results suggest that lexical competition plays a role in the recognition of Kanji words, just as it does for words in alphabetic languages. However, in Kanji, and likely in other logographic languages, the effect of lexical competition appears to be counteracted by facilitory morphological priming due to the repetition of a morphological unit in the prime and target (i.e., in Kanji, each character represents a morpheme).

The special role of higher-frequency neighbors at the phonological level: an event-related potential study of chinese character naming.

The present study explored the time course of neighborhood frequency effect at the early processing stages, examining whether orthographic neighbors with higher frequency exerted an influence on target processing especially at the phonological stage by using the event-related potential (ERP). Thirteen undergraduate students were recruited in this study, and they were required to covertly name Chinese characters with or without higher-frequency neighbors (HFNs); meanwhile, their brain activity was recorded. Results showed that the effect of neighborhood frequency was significant in frontocentral P2 amplitude, with a reduction for naming characters with HFNs compared to those without HFNs; while there was no effect in posterior N1 amplitude. The only neighborhood frequency effect in P2 component suggested a special role for the HFNs in phonological access of Chinese characters. The decrease in amplitude for naming with-HFN characters might be associated with the phonological interference of higher-frequency neighbors due to their different pronunciations from the target characters.

Efeitos de vizinhança ortográfica no português brasileiro: um estudo com a tarefa de identificação perceptual

This study investigated the effects of Neighborhood Density (ND) and Neighborhood Frequency (NF) on visual word recognition in 32 Brazilian Portuguese speakers. Participants were given a standard perceptual identification task in which they had a 3-second time-limit for saying aloud what the target word was. Experimental stimuli consisted of 64 words according to an ND (2) x NF (2) factorial design. Higher percentages of errors were made for words with a higher frequency neighbor and lower percentages of errors were made for words with a high neighborhood density. It is argued that the results were due to ND and NF effects on lexical access and that they pose difficulties for Dual Route and PDP models of visual word recognition.

Lexical competition in a non-Roman, syllabic script: An inhibitory neighbour priming effect in Japanese Katakana

Previous masked priming studies have reported that lexical decision latencies are slower when a word target is primed by a higher-frequency neighbour (e.g., blue-BLUR) than when it is primed by an unrelated word of equivalent frequency (e.g., care-BLUR). These results suggest that lexical competition plays an important role in visual word identification in Indo-European languages such as English, French, and Dutch, consistent with activation-based accounts of lexical processing. The present research, using Japanese Katakana script, a syllabic script, demonstrates that lexical decision latencies were slower when targets were primed by word neighbour primes but not when targets were primed by nonword neighbour primes. Both results have clear parallels with previous research using Indo-European languages and therefore suggest that lexical competition is also an important component of word recognition processes in languages that do not employ the Roman alphabet.

The Effect of Prime Duration in Masked Orthographic Priming Depends on Neighborhood Distribution

A lexical decision task was used with a masked priming procedure to investigate whether and to what extent neighborhood distribution influences the effect of prime duration in masked orthographic priming. French word targets had two higher frequency neighbors that were either distributed over two letter positions (e.g., LOBE/robe-loge) or concentrated on a single letter position (e.g., FARD/tard-lard). Word targets were preceded by their highest frequency neighbor or by a control prime. Four prime durations were compared (27, 39, 53, and 67 ms). Results showed that the inhibitory priming effect found for words with distributed neighbors at a 67-ms stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was canceled when prime duration decreased. In contrast, no priming effect was found in any of the four prime durations for words with concentrated neighbors. Simulations run on the word materials revealed that the interactive activation model (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981) captured the increasing inhibitory priming effect in the distributed neighbor condition but failed to capture the loss of priming in the concentrated neighbor condition.

The N400 as a snapshot of interactive processing: Evidence from regression analyses of orthographic neighbor and lexical associate effects.

Linking print with meaning tends to be divided into subprocesses, such as recognition of an input's lexical entry and subsequent access of semantics. However, recent results suggest that the set of semantic features activated by an input is broader than implied by a view wherein access serially follows recognition. EEG was collected from participants who viewed items varying in number and frequency of both orthographic neighbors and lexical associates. Regression analysis of single item ERPs replicated past findings, showing that N400 amplitudes are greater for items with more neighbors, and further revealed that N400 amplitudes increase for items with more lexical associates and with higher frequency neighbors or associates. Together, the data suggest that in the N400 time window semantic features of items broadly related to inputs are active, consistent with models in which semantic access takes place in parallel with stimulus recognition.