Pronunciation Performance Research Articles

Moving beyond Coltheart’s N: A new measure of orthographic similarity

Visual word recognition studies commonly measure the orthographic similarity of words using Coltheart's orthographic neighborhood size metric (ON). Although ON reliably predicts behavioral variability in many lexical tasks, its utility is inherently limited by its relatively restrictive definition. In the present article, we introduce a new measure of orthographic similarity generated using a standard computer science metric of string similarity (Levenshtein distance). Unlike ON, the new measure-named orthographic Levenshtein distance 20 (OLD20)-incorporates comparisons between all pairs of words in the lexicon, including words of different lengths. We demonstrate that OLD20 provides significant advantages over ON in predicting both lexical decision and pronunciation performance in three large data sets. Moreover, OLD20 interacts more strongly with word frequency and shows stronger effects of neighborhood frequency than does ON. The discussion section focuses on the implications of these results for models of visual word recognition.

A Dissociation of Frequency and Regularity Effects in Pronunciation Performance Across Young-Adults, Older Adults, and Individuals With Senile Dementia of the Alzheimer-Type

The regularity of a given spelling-to-sound sequence in English primarily influences the ease of naming low-frequency words and produces little influence on the ease of naming high-frequency words. This frequency × regularity interaction has been accommodated within both a single-route connectionist model and dual-route models of pronunciation performance. Recent evidence presented by dual-route theorists suggests that the sublexical route in naming performance demands more attention than the lexical route. The present study further explores this possibility by investigating the word-frequency by regularity interaction across five different groups of subjects that have well-documented changes in attentional capacities. The five groups were healthy young adults, older adults between 60 and 80 years of age, older adults greater than 80 years of age, very mildly demented individuals with senile dementia of the Alzheimers Type (SDAT), and mild/moderately demented SDAT individuals. The response latency results from a simple word-naming experiment indicated that there was a consistent increase in the word-frequency effect across the five subject groups (from young to mildly demented individuals) without any corresponding increase in either the regularity effect or the frequency × regularity interaction. However, the results also indicated that there was an increased likelihood of regularization errors (e.g., pronouncing the word pint such that it rhymes with hint) across the subject groups. These results are viewed as most consistent with a model in which healthy young adults are especially slow to name low-frequency irregular words because they must inhibit inconsistent output from an assembled route and produce the correct output from the addressed route. We argue that the increased likelihood of regularization errors in the healthy aged individuals and to a greater extent in the SDAT individuals may be due to a breakdown in the inhibitory control of partially activated (assembled route) information.

Reading kanji without semantics: Evidence from a longitudinal study of dementia

Abstract The effects of the degenerative disease process on patterns of oral reading and reading comprehension of Japanese kanji words were investigated longitudinally in 3 demented patients, based on repeated administration of the 50-item Kanji Pronunciation-Comprehension Test (K.P.C.T.) and a battery of tests assessing a variety of cognitive abilities including semantic memory. On the K.P.C.T., all 3 patients showed essentially perfect oral reading until the very advanced stage of the disease process, which was in marked contrast to the progressive deterioration of their ability to comprehend the same set of words. These findings, consistent with some interpretation of lexical nonsemantic reading in English-speaking neurological patients, suggest the existence of an independent orthography-to-phonology transcoding procedure for kanji words. An interesting discrepancy in the pattern of word pronunciation performance, however, was noted between the Japanese patients (co-existence of near normal word namin...

Priming in pronunciation: Beyond pattern recognition and onset latency

Three experiments that address the impact of associative relatedness on both onset latencies and production durations in pronunciation performance are reported. In Experiment 1, a related response cue, presented after a to-be-pronounced target word, decreased the target word's production duration, compared to an unrelated response cue, but did not influence its onset latency. In Experiment 2, two related or two unrelated words were simultaneously presented. The response cue was presented 400, 900, 1400, or 1900 ms after the stimuli were presented and indicated whether to pronounce the stimuli in a prepared sequence or in an unprepared sequence. The results indicated that the production durations were shorter when the two words were related, compared to unrelated, independent of cue delay. Also, the onset latencies were faster when the words were related compared to unrelated at each delay except the 1900-ms delay. In Experiment 3, three word sequences were presented to distinguish between associative-cooccurrence accounts and meaning-level accounts of the results obtained in Experiments 1 and 2. The results of Experiment 3 yielded a significant impact of the primes on both onset latencies and production durations. The pattern of priming effects supported a meaning-level account of the present production duration effects. The results from these experiments are interpreted within both an interactive activation model of speech production and a cooperative-based model of language processing.

The Learner's Interlanguage as a System of Variable Rules

Reported in this paper is a longitudinal study of the acquisition and use of the English sound system by Japanese learners of English. The central point is that the learner's second-language system must be a system of variable rules if it is to account for the variability (wide assortment of pronunciations) in his production, the fluctuations between his in-class and out-of-class performance, and the regularities in his process of acquisition. The model used in this research is the variability model of sociolinguistics. Discussed here are both the theoretical and practical values of this study. First, it captures the regular patterning of diversity in the learner's speech, giving the developing theory of interlanguagel a firmer grounding. Second, the study provides insights to help the classroom teacher better understand and evaluate student performance in pronunciation.