Phonological Word Forms Research Articles

The relationship between knowing a word and reading it aloud in children’s word reading development

This experiment examined the item-level relationship between 7-year-olds’ ability to read words aloud and their knowledge of the same words in the oral domain. Two types of knowledge were contrasted: familiarity with the phonological form of the word (lexical phonology), measured by auditory lexical decision, and semantic knowledge, measured by a definitions task. Overall, there was a robust relationship between word knowledge and reading aloud success. The association was stronger when words contained irregular spelling–sound correspondences. There was no evidence that a deeper or more semantic knowledge of words was more closely related to reading aloud success beyond the association between reading success and familiarity with the phonological form of the same words. This finding is not compatible with models that see semantics as contributing directly to the reading aloud process, at least during the relatively early stages of reading development. More critical was whether or not a word was considered a lexical item, as indexed by auditory lexical decision performance.

Vowel categorization during word recognition in bilingual toddlers

Toddlers’ and preschoolers’ knowledge of the phonological forms of words was tested in Spanish-learning, Catalan-learning, and bilingual children. These populations are of particular interest because of differences in the Spanish and Catalan vowel systems: Catalan has two vowels in a phonetic region where Spanish has only one. The proximity of the Spanish vowel to the Catalan ones might pose special learning problems. Children were shown picture pairs; the target picture’s name was spoken correctly, or a vowel in the target word was altered. Altered vowels either contrasted with the usual vowel in Spanish and Catalan, or only in Catalan. Children’s looking to the target picture was used as a measure of word recognition. Monolinguals’ word recognition was hindered by within-language, but not non-native, vowel changes. Surprisingly, bilingual toddlers did not show sensitivity to changes in vowels contrastive only in Catalan. Among preschoolers, Catalan-dominant bilinguals but not Spanish-dominant bilinguals revealed mispronunciation sensitivity for the Catalan-only contrast. These studies reveal monolingual children’s robust knowledge of native-language vowel categories in words, and show that bilingual children whose two languages contain phonetically overlapping vowel categories may not treat those categories as separate in language comprehension.

Multisyllabic nonwords: More than a string of syllables

Nonword repetition is closely associated with the learning of the phonological form of novel words. Several factors influence nonword repetition performance such as short-term memory, phonotactic probability, lexical knowledge, and prosodic factors. The present study examined the influence of list duration, coarticulation, and prosody on nonword repetition by comparing naturally articulated multisyllabic nonwords to multisyllabic nonwords formed by concatenating syllables produced in isolation and serial lists (experiment 1), to multisyllabic forms that incorporated either valid or invalid coarticulatory information (experiment 2), and to multisyllabic forms either with or without common English within-word stress patterns (experiment 3). Results revealed superior recall for naturally articulated nonwords compared to lists of matched duration or sequences with invalid coarticulatory cues. Within-word stress patterns also conveyed a repetition advantage. The findings clearly establish that the coarticulatory and prosodic cues of naturally articulated multisyllabic forms support retention.

Onsets and codas in 1.5-year-olds’ word recognition

Previous tests of toddlers’ phonological knowledge of familiar words using word recognition tasks have examined syllable onsets but not word-final consonants (codas). However, there are good reasons to suppose that children’s knowledge of coda consonants might be less complete than their knowledge of onset consonants. To test this hypothesis, the present study examined 14–22-month-old children’s knowledge of the phonological forms of familiar words by measuring their comprehension of correctly pronounced and mispronounced instances of those words using a visual fixation task. Mispronunciations substituted onset or coda consonants. Adults were tested in the same task for comparison with children. Children and adults fixated named targets more upon hearing correct pronunciations than upon hearing mispronunciations, whether those mispronunciations involved the word’s initial or final consonant. In addition, detailed analysis of the timing of adults’ and children’s eye movements provided clear evidence for incremental interpretation of the speech signal. Children’s responses were slower and less accurate overall, but children and adults showed nearly identical temporal effects of the placement of phonological substitutions. The results demonstrate accurate encoding of consonants even in words children cannot yet say.

A Multidisciplinary Approach to Understanding Developmental Dyslexia Within Working-Memory Architecture: Genotypes, Phenotypes, Brain, and Instruction

A unifying theoretical framework of three working memory components provides a systems perspective for discussing past and new findings in a 12-year research program that point to heterogeneity in the genetic and brain basis and behavioral expression of dyslexia: (a) codes for word-form storage and processing, (b) time-sensitive phonological and orthographic loops for maintaining information in working memory or outputting it, and (c) executive functions for language (e.g., rapid automatic switching of attention). Results, which span the genetic to neurological to behavioral levels of analysis, point to possible impairment in any one or combination of these working memory components in individuals with dyslexia. A DNA variation on chromosome 15 may be linked with the phonological word-form in the first working-memory component. A DNA variation on chromosome 6 may be linked with slow rapid automatic switching, inattention ratings, and impaired goal-directed activity ratings in the third working-memory component. Brain and behavioral findings support (a) Triple Word Form Theory: phonological, orthographic, and morphological word-forms and their parts contribute to learning to read and spell words; and (b) Cross-Word Form Mapping: in the process of learning to read and spell words children compute the inter-relationships among the three word-forms and their parts. However, children with dyslexia may require more focus on the morphological word-form and its parts and their relationships with the other two word-forms and their parts than do normal readers. Also, children with dyslexia have unusual difficulties in sustaining phonological loop function in working memory over time; their impaired orthographic loop function may interfere with learning to write alphabet letters and spell, which may be as impaired as word decoding and reading. Impaired executive functions may interfere with the efficiency of working memory in processing oral and written language.

Sublexical units in aphasic jargon and in the standard language: Comparative analyses of neologisms in connected speech

Background: It is a well‐documented finding that phonemic speech errors in aphasia reflect certain characteristics of their intended targets. However, only few studies have investigated spontaneous speech productions of jargon‐aphasic patients, in which lexical targets may be completely unrecognisable (abstruse phonemic neologisms). There is some evidence that these neologisms correspond to the standard language concerning phonemic content and structure. Aims: The present study further explores similarities of aphasic neologisms and the standard language, to contribute to the discussion about the origin of non‐target‐related errors in jargon aphasia. It investigates whether similarities at the phoneme level can be confirmed even in connected, severely jargonised speech that does not allow identification of lexical targets. Moreover, it raises the question whether other sublexical units like syllables contribute to the formation of phonemic neologisms. Methods & Procedures: Neologisms in spontaneous speech of a German‐speaking jargon‐aphasic patient were compared to the standard language concerning phoneme and syllable inventory, structural aspects, and distributional frequencies of sublexical measures. Data of the standard language were derived from meta‐analyses of a German phonological word form database. Outcomes & Results: A strong relatedness to the standard language was demonstrated for the aphasic neologisms in connected speech. Similarities regarded phoneme inventory, phonotactics, and phoneme frequency distributions. The patient data point to a preferred use of high‐frequency phonemes and syllables in neologisms. In addition, a similar distribution of syllable frequencies and structures was observed in the neologisms and in standard German. Results indicate that syllable frequency serves as a predictor for the neologisms' distributional frequencies. Conclusions: The present study indicated that phonemic neologisms with no or weak evidence for a lexical origin still conformed to the phonological characteristics of the standard language, suggesting undisturbed segmental phonological processing. With respect to processing levels in speech production, results specifically pointed to a prominent role of syllabic units. The present findings are compatible with the assumption that syllabic representations, like structural information of syllables, are constrained in neologism formation.

The relationships among verbal short-term memory, phonological awareness, and new word learning: Evidence from typical development and Down syndrome

This study examined the correlates of new word learning in a sample of 64 typically developing children between 5 and 8 years of age and a group of 22 teenagers and young adults with Down syndrome. Verbal short-term memory and phonological awareness skills were assessed to determine whether learning new words involved accurately representing phonological information in memory. Results showed a relationship between verbal short-term memory measures and typically developing individuals’ ability to learn the phonological form of novel words but not their ability to learn the physical referent of new words. Similarly, individuals with Down syndrome showed impaired verbal short-term memory and impaired form but not referent learning. Together, these findings specify the circumstances in which an accurate phonological representation within short-term memory is required for new word learning.

What Can Graph Theory Tell Us About Word Learning and Lexical Retrieval?

Graph theory and the new science of networks provide a mathematically rigorous approach to examine the development and organization of complex systems. These tools were applied to the mental lexicon to examine the organization of words in the lexicon and to explore how that structure might influence the acquisition and retrieval of phonological word-forms. Pajek, a program for large network analysis and visualization (V. Batagelj & A. Mvrar, 1998), was used to examine several characteristics of a network derived from a computerized database of the adult lexicon. Nodes in the network represented words, and a link connected two nodes if the words were phonological neighbors. The average path length and clustering coefficient suggest that the phonological network exhibits small-world characteristics. The degree distribution was fit better by an exponential rather than a power-law function. Finally, the network exhibited assortative mixing by degree. Some of these structural characteristics were also found in graphs that were formed by 2 simple stochastic processes suggesting that similar processes might influence the development of the lexicon. The graph theoretic perspective may provide novel insights about the mental lexicon and lead to future studies that help us better understand language development and processing.

Lexical retrieval and semantic knowledge in patients with left inferior temporal lobe lesions

Background: It has been proposed that anomia following left inferior temporal lobe lesions may have two different underlying mechanisms with distinct neural substrates. Specifically, naming impairment following damage to more posterior regions (BA 37) has been considered to result from a disconnection between preserved semantic knowledge and phonological word forms (pure anomia), whereas anomia following damage to anterior temporal regions (BAs 38, 20/21) has been attributed to the degradation of semantic representations (semantic anomia). However, the integrity of semantic knowledge in patients with pure anomia has not been demonstrated convincingly, nor were lesions in these cases necessarily confined to BA 37. Furthermore, evidence of semantic anomia often comes from individuals with bilateral temporal lobe damage, so it is unclear whether unilateral temporal lobe lesions are sufficient to produce significant semantic impairment. This research was supported by a Graduate Imaging Fellowship from the University of Arizona and by NIH grants RO1DC008286 and RO1DC07464. Scans were funded through Arizona Alzheimer's Research Consortium, Cognition and NeuroImaging Lab, Arizona Department of Health Services HB2354. Many thanks to Jen Parrott, Kristin Boruff, and Cathy West for their time and assistance. The authors thank Mark Borgstrom, statistical consultant at the University of Arizona, for his assistance with this project. We also thank Chris Rorden for advice regarding lesion analyses. Aims: The main goals of this study were to determine whether anomia following unilateral left inferior temporal lobe damage reflected a loss of semantic knowledge or a post‐semantic deficit in lexical retrieval and to identify the neuroanatomical correlates of the naming impairment. Methods & Procedures: Eight individuals who underwent left anterior temporal lobectomy (L ATL) and eight individuals who sustained left posterior cerebral artery strokes (L PCA) completed a battery of language measures that assessed lexical retrieval and semantic processing, and 16 age‐ and education‐matched controls also completed this battery. High‐resolution structural brain scans were collected to conduct lesion analyses. Outcomes & Results: Performance of L ATL and L PCA patients was strikingly similar, with both groups demonstrating naming performance ranging from moderately impaired to unimpaired. Anomia in both groups occurred in the context of mild deficits to semantic knowledge, which manifested primarily as greater difficulty in naming living things than nonliving things and greater difficulty in processing visual/perceptual as opposed to functional/associative semantic attributes. Lesion analyses indicated that both patient groups sustained damage to anterior inferior temporal lobe regions implicated in semantic processing. Conclusions: These results contribute to a better understanding of the cognitive mechanism of naming impairment in patients with temporal lobe damage and support the notion that pure anomia and semantic anomia represent two endpoints along a continuum of semantic impairment. Unilateral left temporal lobe lesions in our patients resulted in relatively mild semantic deficits that were apparent primarily in lexical production tasks, whereas severe semantic impairment likely requires bilateral temporal lobe damage.

Homographic and heterographic homophones in speech production: Does orthography matter?

This paper investigates homophone naming performance in an individual with impaired word retrieval. The aim of the study is to investigate the status of homophone representations using treatment of homophone picture naming in aphasia. The focus of this paper is the representation of heterographic homophones (words which sound the same but are spelled differently, e.g., ‘knight’ vs. ‘night’). Additionally, we replicate and expand previous findings regarding homographic homophones of Biedermann and Nickels (2008) in English and Biedermann et al. (2002), in German. Two theoretical positions about the mental representation of homophones are tested. First, do homophones – regardless of whether they are spelled the same or differently – share a phonological word form (e.g., Levelt et al., 1999; Dell, 1990)? Or second, do they have independent phonological word forms? (e.g., Caramazza et al., 2001; Miozzo and Caramazza, 2005)? In addition, might it be the case that homographic and heterographic homophones behave differently in word production reflecting different word form representations? These theoretical accounts are put to the test by looking at the generalisation of improvement following the treatment of homophone naming in aphasia, in particular, whether picture naming improves for both homophone meanings if only one is treated using a phonological cueing hierarchy. Treated and untreated homophones improved significantly, regardless of their spelling. Homographic and heterographic homophones showed the same pattern of generalisation. There was no generalisation for phonologically related controls. The pattern of generalisation extends our previous findings (Biedermann et al., 2002; Biedermann and Nickels, 2008) by showing evidence that heterographic homophones benefit to the same extent as homographic homophones. These results are interpreted as favouring a theory where both homographic and heterographic homophones share a single phonological representation. It is inferred that facilitation of naming takes place at the level of phonological representations, where orthography seems to have no influence.

The representation of homophones: More evidence from the remediation of anomia

This paper compares two theoretical positions regarding the mental representation of homophones: first, that homophones have one phonological word form but two grammatical representations (lemmas, e.g., Levelt et al., 1999; Dell, 1990), or second, that they have two separate phonological word forms (e.g., Caramazza et al., 2001). The adequacy of these two theoretical accounts for explaining the pattern of generalisation obtained in the treatment of homophone naming in aphasia is investigated. Two single cases are presented, where phonological treatment techniques are used to improve word retrieval. Treatment comprised picture naming of one member of a homophone pair using a phonological cueing hierarchy. A significant improvement in word retrieval was found for both the treated and the untreated homophones, while there was no improvement for phonologically and semantically related controls. It is argued that the data support a shared representation for homophones at the word form level. However, current theories cannot explain the pattern of generalisation found without the addition of a mechanism for repetition priming (e.g., suggested by Wheeldon and Monsell, 1992) and feedback between word form and lemmas to explain the results.

Frequency, not age of acquisition, affects Italian word naming

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the claim that age of acquisition (AoA) and word frequency effects are reduced or nonexistent in languages that have very regular letter-to-sound mappings, like Italian. The first two experiments (Exp. 1, Exp. 2) showed that frequency variables affect reading aloud and lexical decision in Italian. Variables interpretable as pertaining to a semantic component, including AoA, affected lexical decision but not reading aloud. In Experiments 3 and 4, a measure of frequency—child written word frequency (ChFreq)—and AoA were manipulated. Reading performance was affected by word frequency but not by AoA (Exp. 3), whereas lexical decision was affected by both variables (Exp. 4). In Experiments 5 and 6, ChFreq and AoA were manipulated orthogonally. Only frequency affected reading aloud, with no main effect or interaction involving AoA (Exp. 5). The effects of AoA and frequency interacted in Experiment 6 for lexical decision due to a larger effect of AoA for low frequency words than high frequency words. These results show that in languages with a transparent orthography word frequency may affect reading aloud in the absence of an effect of AoA because Italian readers employ lexical nonsemantic reading aloud. The effect of child written frequency points to the efficiency of the mappings between those orthographic and phonological word forms that were frequently encountered when learning to read.

A Neural Signature of Phonological Access: Distinguishing the Effects of Word Frequency from Familiarity and Length in Overt Picture Naming

Cognitive models of word production correlate the word frequency effect (i.e., the fact that words which appear with less frequency take longer to produce) with an increased processing cost to activate the whole-word (lexical) phonological representation. We performed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while subjects produced overt naming responses to photographs of animals and manipulable objects that had high name agreement but were of varying frequency, with the purpose of identifying neural structures participating specifically in activating whole-word phonological representations, as opposed to activating lexical semantic representations or articulatory-motor routines. Blood oxygen level-dependent responses were analyzed using a parametric approach based on the frequency with which each word produced appears in the language. Parallel analyses were performed for concept familiarity and word length, which provided indices of semantic and articulatory loads. These analyses permitted us to identify regions related to word frequency alone, and therefore, likely to be related specifically to activation of phonological word forms. We hypothesized that the increased processing cost of producing lower-frequency words would correlate with activation of the left posterior inferotemporal (IT) cortex, the left posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG), and the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Scan-time response latencies demonstrated the expected word frequency effect. Analysis of the fMRI data revealed that activity in the pSTG was modulated by frequency but not word length or concept familiarity. In contrast, parts of IT and IFG demonstrated conjoint frequency and familiarity effects, and parts of both primary motor regions demonstrated conjoint effects of frequency and word length. The results are consistent with a model of word production in which lexical-semantic and lexical-phonological information are accessed by overlapping neural systems within posterior and anterior language-related cortices, with pSTG specifically involved in accessing lexical phonology.

Nonword repetition and word learning: The nature of the relationship

This article presents a theoretical framework designed to accommodate core evidence that the abilities to repeat nonwords and to learn the phonological forms of new words are closely linked. Basic findings relating nonword repetition and word learning both in typical samples of children and adults and in individuals with disorders of language learning are described. The theoretical analysis of this evidence is organized around the following claims: first, that nonword repetition and word learning both rely on phonological storage; second, that they are both multiply determined, constrained also by auditory, phonological, and speech–motor output processes; third, that a phonological storage deficit alone may not be sufficient to impair language learning to a substantial degree. It is concluded that word learning mediated by temporary phonological storage is a primitive learning mechanism that is particularly important in the early stages of acquiring a language, but remains available to support word learning across the life span.

Top‐down influences on lexical selection during spoken word production: A 4T fMRI investigation of refractory effects in picture naming

Spoken word production is assumed to involve stages of processing in which activation spreads through layers of units comprising lexical-conceptual knowledge and their corresponding phonological word forms. Using high-field (4T) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we assessed whether the relationship between these stages is strictly serial or involves cascaded-interactive processing, and whether central (decision/control) processing mechanisms are involved in lexical selection. Participants performed the competitor priming paradigm in which distractor words, named from a definition and semantically related to a subsequently presented target picture, slow picture-naming latency compared to that with unrelated words. The paradigm intersperses two trials between the definition and the picture to be named, temporally separating activation in the word perception and production networks. Priming semantic competitors of target picture names significantly increased activation in the left posterior temporal cortex, and to a lesser extent the left middle temporal cortex, consistent with the predictions of cascaded-interactive models of lexical access. In addition, extensive activation was detected in the anterior cingulate and pars orbitalis of the inferior frontal gyrus. The findings indicate that lexical selection during competitor priming is biased by top-down mechanisms to reverse associations between primed distractor words and target pictures to select words that meet the current goal of speech.

Qualitative Investigation on Wearing of Cochlear Implants and Developmental Changes in Communication of Deaf-Born Infants

We investigated qualitative changes in the development of communication in two cases of deaf-born infants, during their first two years of wearing cochlear implants. The results were as follows.1) We found a certain degree of improvement in transmission and recognition of the‘vitality affect’of their parents' voices in both cases. 2) As a consequence, the infants came to pay attention to or guess at their parents' feelings, and we found the appearance of‘meta-level communication’functioning as the basis of language acquisition. 3) Such changes may be effected by a change in the quality of the psychological sympathetic relationship between parents and infants resulting from the transmission of the vitality affect. 4) Also, there may have been a positive impact from the parents' having already acquired their attitude as the communication partner before wearing of the cochlear implant, with wearing of the cochlear implant having started after the infants had achieved a certain level of communication development. 5) We found that the deaf infants' auditory experiences transcended the simple level of hearing the phonological form of words; their experiences, represented by‘the appearance of mother-infant communication through lullabies’, effected a change in the infants' quality of life, and also appeared to extend to recognition of Japanese social-cultural experiences that had been difficult to understand before surgery. 6) The findings suggested that for deaf-born infants wearing of cochlear implants in combination with use of manual communication can have various levels of significance for both the infant and parent.

Age-related effects on speech production: A review

In discourse, older adults tend to be more verbose and more disfluent than young adults, especially when the task is difficult and when it places few constraints on the content of the utterance. This may be due to (a) language-specific deficits in planning the content and syntactic structure of utterances or in selecting and retrieving words from the mental lexicon, (b) a general deficit in inhibiting irrelevant information, or (c) the selection of a specific speech style. The possibility that older adults have a deficit in lexical retrieval is supported by the results of picture naming studies, in which older adults have been found to name objects less accurately and more slowly than young adults, and by the results of definition naming studies, in which older adults have been found to experience more tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) states than young adults. The available evidence suggests that these age differences are largely due to weakening of the connections linking word lemmas to phonological word forms, though adults above 70 years of age may have an additional deficit in lemma selection.

Memory of Socially-Obtained Information Versus Non-Socially-Obtained Information

Abstract: This study investigates whether “socialness” increases the memorability of newly acquired knowledge of a second language (L2). Three groups of beginning learners of Japanese learned 10 novel Japanese words through a Q & A session. Group 1 did the session with a human interactant and learned the novel words from him. Group 2 did the session alone with a tape-recorded voice and learned the words from the voice on tape. Group 3 did the session alone with a booklet and a dictionary. Forty-five minutes after the session, the subjects' memories for (a) the learning event (i.e., the semantic content of the questions asked), (b) the phonological form of the novel words, and (c) the form–meaning association were assessed through a series of posttests. The results indicated only a nonstatistically significant trend supporting the idea that socialness increases the memorability of newly acquired knowledge of an L2.

Cleaving automatic processes from strategic biases in phonological priming

In a phonological priming experiment using spoken Dutch words, Dutch listeners were taught varying expectancies and relatedness relations about the phonological form of target words, given particular primes. They learned to expect that, after a particular prime, if the target was a word, it would be from a specific phonological category. The expectancy either involved phonological overlap (e.g., honk-vonk, "base-spark"; expected related) or did not (e.g., nest-galm, "nest-boom"; expected unrelated, where the learned expectation after hearing nest was a word rhyming in -alm). Targets were occasionally inconsistent with expectations. In these inconsistent expectancy trials, targets were either unrelated (e.g., honk-mest, "base-manure"; unexpected unrelated), where the listener was expecting a related target, or related (e.g., nest-pest, "nest-plague"; unexpected related), where the listener was expecting an unrelated target. Participant expectations and phonological relatedness were thus manipulated factorially for three types of phonological overlap (rhyme, one onset phoneme, and three onset phonemes) at three interstimulus intervals (ISIs; 50, 500, and 2,000 msec). Lexical decisions to targets revealed evidence of expectancy-based strategies for all three types of overlap (e.g., faster responses to expected than to unexpected targets, irrespective of phonological relatedness) and evidence of automatic phonological processes, but only for the rhyme and three-phoneme onset overlap conditions and, most strongly, at the shortest ISI (e.g., faster responses to related than to unrelated targets, irrespective of expectations). Although phonological priming thus has both automatic and strategic components, it is possible to cleave them apart.

Converging evidence for attentional influences on the orthographic word form in child dyslexics

Initial confirmatory factor analyses showed that parental ratings of 209 children and youth with dyslexia in a family genetics study loaded onto factors for Inattention (Self-Regulation of Covert Attention based on two indicators—Focused and Goal-Directed Attention) and Hyperactivity (Overt Behavior based on two indicators—Motor Control and Inhibition); neither indicator is correlated with age. Structural equation modeling then evaluated a multi-level neural architecture with Covert Attention and Overt Behavior at one level, Word-Level Language Processes (Orthographic, Phonological, and Rapid Automatic Naming) at a second level, and Reading and Writing Achievement at a third level. Covert Attention, but not Overt Behavior, was significantly related to factors for orthographic coding of written words and rapid naming of orthographic stimuli, but not to the phonological coding factor for aural words. These orthographic, rapid naming, and phonological factors had significant paths to reading and writing outcomes, but the Covert Attention factor had links to reading and writing outcomes only through the mediating orthographic and rapid naming factors. Treatment and brain imaging studies provided converging evidence that attention may exert greater effects on orthographic word form than phonological word form. The neurolinguistic significance for a complex brain system, modeled at different levels of analysis, is that non-language processes such as attention may exert distal influences even though language exerts direct proximal influences on reading and writing outcomes; this claim is supported by recent physiological findings about the role of fast visual system as an attention gating mechanism in processing letter sequences. The educational significance is that instruction should direct dyslexic's attention to the orthographic units within written words to facilitate the translating of orthographic into phonological word forms.