Regular Words Research Articles

Language and Computation: A Synergy

Just as a DNA sequence is the composition of elements allotted for a living being, so a sentence is the composition of the linguistic elements for a given language. Units, compositional rules, alternation/permutation, exceptions/irregularities as well as functions associated with a certain level of sequencing (of appearance, behavior, intention, etc.) operate similarly in these two domains. Language is part of human cognition ability, which in principle is based on processing procedures such as logical inference, analogy, contrastive pattern recognition and the like. For linguists, we are looking for regularities in languages. We are developing rules to generate regular word sequences. We are trying to interpret the mutual understanding between the speaker and the recipient, while handling a certain set of given word sequences. But not everything in a language is computable. Exceptions in terms of generative rules are sometimes quite commonly used in natural language. Concerning languages, computation is meant to operate both at the level of abstract theoretical inference and at observing empirical classification of word sequences. To emphasize the importance of the synergy of language and computation concerning the understanding and modeling of how human language is employed, this special issue includes four papers. The topics cover: (1) formal semantics: computation of meaning from a theoretical point of view; (2) contrastive/typological linguistics: understanding and classification of word order sequences in different languages; (3) corpus linguistics: empirical studies of production unit sequences; and (4) quantitative methodology: general approaches to conducting analysis on association of words or word sequences. Aside from the aspects of language and computation, these studies deal with linguistic phenomena in multiple languages: Chinese, English, French, and Thai. We hope to make a statement that language is operated by computation, but with ‘common exceptions’. Thus, for linguistics to develop into a scientific discipline, we need to embrace philosophical, empirical, mathematical, and experimental approaches.

How does the interaction between spelling and motor processes build up during writing acquisition?

How do we recall a word’s spelling? How do we produce the movements to form the letters of a word? Writing involves several processing levels. Surprisingly, researchers have focused either on spelling or motor production. However, these processes interact and cannot be studied separately. Spelling processes cascade into movement production. For example, in French, producing letters PAR in the orthographically irregular word PARFUM (perfume) delays motor production with respect to the same letters in the regular word PARDON (pardon). Orthographic regularity refers to the possibility of spelling a word correctly by applying the most frequent sound-letter conversion rules. The present study examined how the interaction between spelling and motor processing builds up during writing acquisition. French 8–10year old children participated in the experiment. This is the age handwriting skills start to become automatic. The children wrote regular and irregular words that could be frequent or infrequent. They wrote on a digitizer so we could collect data on latency, movement duration and fluency. The results revealed that the interaction between spelling and motor processing was present already at age 8. It became more adult-like at ages 9 and 10. Before starting to write, processing irregular words took longer than regular words. This processing load spread into movement production. It increased writing duration and rendered the movements more dysfluent. Word frequency affected latencies and cascaded into production. It modulated writing duration but not movement fluency. Writing infrequent words took longer than frequent words. The data suggests that orthographic regularity has a stronger impact on writing than word frequency. They do not cascade in the same extent.

The role of predictability and structure in word stress processing: an ERP study on Cairene Arabic and a cross-linguistic comparison.

This article presents neurolinguistic data on word stress perception in Cairene Arabic, in comparison to previous results on German and Turkish. The main goal is to investigate how central properties of stress systems such as predictability of stress and metrical structure are reflected in the prosodic processing of words. Cairene Arabic is a language with a regular foot-based word stress system, leading to highly predictable placement of word stress. An ERP study on Cairene Arabic is reported, in which a stress violation paradigm is used to investigate the factors predictability of stress and foot structure. The results of the experiment show that for Cairene Arabic the internal structure of prosodic words in terms of feet determines prosodic processing. This structure effect is complemented by a frequency effect for stress patterns.

List context effects in languages with opaque and transparent orthographies: a challenge for models of reading.

This paper offers a review of data which show that reading is a flexible and dynamic process and that readers can exert strategic control over it. Two main hypotheses on the control of reading processes have been suggested: the route de-emphasis hypothesis and the time-criterion hypothesis. According to the former, the presence of irregular words in the list might lead to an attenuation of the non-lexical process, while the presence of non-words could trigger a de-emphasis of the lexical route. An alternative account is proposed by the time-criterion hypothesis whereby the reader sets a flexible deadline to initiate the response. According to the latter view, it is the average pronunciation difficulty of the items in the block that modulates the time-criterion for response. However, it is worth noting that the list composition has been shown to exert different effects in transparent compared to opaque orthographies, as the consistency of spelling-sound correspondences can influence the processing costs of the non-lexical pathway. In transparent orthographies, the non-lexical route is not resource demanding and can successfully contribute to the pronunciation of regular words, thus its de-emphasis could not be as useful/necessary as in opaque orthographies. The complex patterns of results from the literature on list context effects are a challenge for computational models of reading which face the problem of simulating strategic control over reading processes. Different proposals suggest a modification of parameter setting in the non-lexical route or the implementation of a new module aimed at focusing attention on the output of the more convenient pathway. Simulation data and an assessment of the models’ fit to the behavioral results are presented and discussed to shed light on the role of the cognitive system when reading aloud.

Frequency, nature, and predictors of alexia in a convenience sample of individuals with chronic aphasia

Background: It is broadly known that persons with chronic aphasia experience difficulty reading. However, the frequency of acquired reading disorders (alexia), and the most common subtype of alexia, as well as predictors of reading in this population are yet to be determined.Aims: This study aims to provide initial evidence regarding the frequency, nature, and predictors of alexia in a large convenience sample of persons with chronic aphasia.Methods & Procedures: Single-word oral reading abilities for lexical items (regular and irregular words) and sublexical items (pseudohomophones and nonwords) from 99 persons with aphasia (PWA) and 29 normal controls (NC) were assessed and retrospectively analysed.Outcomes & Results: Of the 99 PWA, 68% met our alexia criteria. These PWA and coexisting alexia performed worse than the NC on all reading stimuli and tended to perform worse with stimuli requiring sublexical processing (i.e., pseudohomophones and nonwords) than on stimuli requiring lexical processing (i.e., real words). The group of PWA and alexia had a wide range of aphasia types and severities. Less severe aphasia was found to predict higher oral reading performance. Education was not found to be a significant predictor of reading.Conclusions: Our retrospectively analysed results from a convenience sample suggest that reading problems occur frequently among PWA and severity of aphasia influences reading performance. Moreover, our results suggest that acquired reading difficulties after stroke are likely to be characterised by difficulty with sublexical processing. A priori work is needed to provide greater control over participant and stimuli selection to further systematically explore the presence and nature of alexia within chronic aphasia.

Naming acronyms: The influence of reading context in skilled reading and surface dyslexia

Background: Within dual-route models of reading, words with regular spelling to sound correspondences can be read successfully using lexical or nonlexical reading processes. Research has indicated that which of these pathways is used is influenced by the other items that form the presentation context.Aims: We extend these findings using acronym stimuli as targets, presenting them in contexts designed to cue reading through grapheme–phoneme conversion or letter naming.Methods & Procedures: In Experiment 1, undergraduate participants (n = 30) read aloud stimuli presented onscreen. Response times and accuracy for target acronyms ambiguous in their print to pronunciation conversion (e.g., HIV versus NASA) were compared between two contexts. In one condition, the majority of items were unambiguous acronyms (e.g., BBC). In the second condition, the nontarget items were regular words (e.g., CAT). Experiment 2 administered the same reading task to a single case of semantic dementia.Outcomes & Results: A significant interaction between presentation context and acronym pronunciation was observed, such that responses were faster and more accurate to items that were pronounced in the same way as the majority of other stimuli in the list. Similar, though more dramatic, context effects were observed in a case of semantic dementia.Conclusions: We argue that context effects are pervasive in reading research and that presentation context should be considered when interpreting future findings, particularly in cases of aphasia and dyslexia.

Interpreting response time effects in functional imaging studies

It has been suggested that differential neural activity in imaging studies is most informative if it is independent of response time (RT) differences. However, others view RT as a behavioural index of key cognitive processes, which is likely linked to underlying neural activity. Here, we reconcile these views using the effort and engagement framework developed by Taylor, Rastle, and Davis (2013) and data from the domain of reading aloud. We propose that differences in neural engagement should be independent of RT, whereas, differences in neural effort should co-vary with RT. We illustrate these different mechanisms using data from an fMRI study of neural activity during reading aloud of regular words, irregular words, and pseudowords. In line with our proposals, activation revealed by contrasts designed to tap differences in neural engagement (e.g., words are meaningful and therefore engage semantic representations more than pseudowords) survived correction for RT, whereas activation for contrasts designed to tap differences in neural effort (e.g., it is more difficult to generate the pronunciation of pseudowords than words) correlated with RT. However, even for contrasts designed to tap neural effort, activity remained after factoring out the RT–BOLD response correlation. This may reveal unpredicted differences in neural engagement (e.g., learning phonological forms for pseudowords>words) that could further the development of cognitive models of reading aloud. Our framework provides a theoretically well-grounded and easily implemented method for analysing and interpreting RT effects in neuroimaging studies of cognitive processes.

An analysis of Two Reading Intervention Programs

AbstractIn this study, the student texts and teacher guides of two reading intervention programs for at-risk, first-grade students were analyzed and compared: Fountas and Pinnell’s Leveled Literacy Intervention (LLI) and Scott Foresman’s My Sidewalks (MS). The analyses drew on the framework of available theory and research on beginning texts developed by Mesmer, Cunningham, and Hiebert in 2012. This framework includes attention to word-level, text-level, and program-level features. The student texts of the two programs had similar average percentages of single-appearing words and words that can elicit a mental picture (concrete words); however, LLI texts featured more repetition of words, a slightly higher percentage of highly frequent words, and a considerably higher percentage of multisyllable words. MS texts contained a higher percentage of phonetically regular words and a higher lesson-to-text match between phonics elements in teacher guides and the words in student texts. Instructional implications a...

Improving recognition of proper nouns in ASR through generating and filtering phonetic transcriptions

Accurate phonetic transcription of proper nouns can be an important resource for commercial applications that embed speech technologies, such as audio indexing and vocal phone directory lookup. However, an accurate phonetic transcription is more difficult to obtain for proper nouns than for regular words. Indeed, phonetic transcription of a proper noun depends on both the origin of the speaker pronouncing it and the origin of the proper noun itself.This work proposes a method that allows the extraction of phonetic transcriptions of proper nouns using actual utterances of those proper nouns, thus yielding transcriptions based on practical use instead of mere pronunciation rules.The proposed method consists in a process that first extracts phonetic transcriptions, and then iteratively filters them. In order to initialize the process, an alignment dictionary is used to detect word boundaries. A rule-based grapheme-to-phoneme generator (LIA_PHON), a knowledge-based approach (JSM), and a Statistical Machine Translation based system were evaluated for this alignment. As a result, compared to our reference dictionary (BDLEX supplemented by LIA_PHON for missing words) on the ESTER 1 French broadcast news corpus, we were able to significantly decrease the Word Error Rate (WER) on segments of speech with proper nouns, without negatively affecting the WER on the rest of the corpus.

“Meng? It Just Means Cute”: A Chinese Online Vernacular Term in Context

“Meng? It Just Means Cute”: A Chinese Online Vernacular Term in Context

Processing visual words with numbers: Electrophysiological evidence for semantic activation

Perea, Duñabeitia, and Carreiras (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 34:237-241, 2008) found that LEET stimuli, formed by a mixture of digits and letters (e.g., T4BL3 instead of TABLE), produced priming effects similar to those for regular words. This finding led them to conclude that LEET stimuli automatically activate lexical information. In the present study, we examined whether semantic activation occurs for LEET stimuli by using an electrophysiological measure called the N400 effect. The N400 effect, also known as the mismatch negativity, reflects detection of a mismatch between a word and the current semantic context. This N400 effect could occur only if the LEET stimulus had been identified and processed semantically. Participants determined whether a stimulus (word or LEET) was related to a given category (e.g., APPLE or 4PPL3 belongs to the category "fruit," but TABLE or T4BL3 does not). We found that LEET stimuli produced an N400 effect similar in magnitude to that for regular uppercase words, suggesting that LEET stimuli can access meaning in a manner similar to words presented in consistent uppercase letters.

Activation of lexical and semantic representations without intention along GPC-sublexical and orthographic-lexical reading pathways in a Stroop paradigm.

Dual route models of reading suggest there are 2 pathways for reading words: an orthographic-lexical pathway, used to read familiar regular words and exception words, and a grapheme-to-phoneme-conversion-(GPC)-sublexical pathway, used to read unfamiliar regular words, pseudohomophones (PHs), and nonwords. It is unclear, however, whether PHs activate lexical and semantic representations without intention in the GPC-sublexical pathway to the same extent as words along the orthographic-lexical pathway. The present study explored this by introducing a novel condition, color pseudohomophone associates (CPHAs; e.g., "skigh"), in 3 experiments using the Stroop paradigm. Experiment 1 examined 4 types of stimuli: color words (CWs), color word associates (CWAs), color PHs (CPHs), and color PH associates (CPHAs), in a mixed list context. Significant Stroop effects were found for all 4 types of stimuli. To ensure the robustness of this effect, Experiment 2 was conducted using pure list contexts whereby participants received only word stimuli (e.g., CWs, CWAs) or only PH stimuli (e.g., CPHs, CPHAs). The results replicated those of Experiment 1, suggesting that CPHAs activate lexical and semantic representations without intention in the GPC-sublexical pathway. Experiment 3 added 2 novel conditions: color exception word associates (which can only be pronounced correctly using the orthographic-lexical pathway) to compare the effects obtained with color exception PH associates (which rely on the GPC-sublexical pathway for correct pronunciation). Stroop effects of similar magnitude were found for both types of stimuli, suggesting lexical and semantic representations are accessed without intention in either reading pathway to a similar degree. Implications for models of reading are discussed.

Dyslexia in a French–Spanish bilingual girl: Behavioural and neural modulations following a visual attention span intervention

We report the case study of a French–Spanish bilingual dyslexic girl, MP, who exhibited a severe visual attention (VA) span deficit but preserved phonological skills. Behavioural investigation showed a severe reduction of reading speed for both single items (words and pseudo-words) and texts in the two languages. However, performance was more affected in French than in Spanish. MP was administered an intensive VA span intervention programme. Pre–post intervention comparison revealed a positive effect of intervention on her VA span abilities. The intervention further transferred to reading. It primarily resulted in faster identification of the regular and irregular words in French. The effect of intervention was rather modest in Spanish that only showed a tendency for faster word reading. Text reading improved in the two languages with a stronger effect in French but pseudo-word reading did not improve in either French or Spanish. The overall results suggest that VA span intervention may primarily enhance the fast global reading procedure, with stronger effects in French than in Spanish. MP underwent two fMRI sessions to explore her brain activations before and after VA span training. Prior to the intervention, fMRI assessment showed that the striate and extrastriate visual cortices alone were activated but none of the regions typically involved in VA span. Post-training fMRI revealed increased activation of the superior and inferior parietal cortices. Comparison of pre- and post-training activations revealed significant activation increase of the superior parietal lobes (BA 7) bilaterally. Thus, we show that a specific VA span intervention not only modulates reading performance but further results in increased brain activity within the superior parietal lobes known to housing VA span abilities. Furthermore, positive effects of VA span intervention on reading suggest that the ability to process multiple visual elements simultaneously is one cause of successful reading acquisition.

Investigating the ventral-lexical, dorsal-sublexical model of basic reading processes using diffusion tensor imaging

Recent results from diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) studies provide evidence of a ventral-lexical stream and a dorsal-sublexical stream associated with reading processing. We investigated the relationship between behavioural reading speed for stimuli thought to rely on either the ventral-lexical, dorsal-sublexical, or both streams and white matter via fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) using DTI tractography. Participants (N = 32) overtly named exception words (e.g., 'one', ventral-lexical), regular words (e.g., 'won', both streams), nonwords ('wum', dorsal-sublexical) and pseudohomophones ('wun', dorsal-sublexical) in a behavioural lab. Each participant then underwent a brain scan that included a 30-directional DTI sequence. Tractography was used to extract FA and MD values from four tracts of interest: inferior longitudinal fasciculus, uncinate fasciculus, arcuate fasciculus, and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus. Median reaction times (RTs) for reading exception words and regular words both showed a significant correlation with the FA of the uncinate fasciculus thought to underlie the ventral processing stream, such that response time decreased as FA increased. In addition, RT for exception and regular words showed a relationship with MD of the uncinate fasciculus, such that response time increased as MD increased. Multiple regression analyses revealed that exception word RT accounted for unique variability in FA of the uncinate over and above regular words. There were no robust relationships found between pseudohomophones, or nonwords, and tracts thought to underlie the dorsal processing stream. These results support the notion that word recognition, in general, and exception word reading in particular, rely on ventral-lexical brain regions.

Predictors of Orthographic Learning of Regular and Irregular Words

The aim of this study was to explore the reading and language skills that are associated with orthographic learning and to examine whether the effects of these factors are influenced by word regularity. Grade 2 and 3 children learned the phonology and meaning of novel words and were subsequently exposed to their orthography, with either regular or irregular mappings. At the participant level, phonological decoding skill, orthographic knowledge, and vocabulary knowledge were associated with orthographic learning for both word types. However, at an item level, reading novel words correctly did not directly relate to the successful acquisition of the representations of those novel words. In addition, item-specific vocabulary knowledge was a predictor of success in orthographic learning, but only for irregular words. The findings are discussed in relation to the self-teaching hypothesis (Share, 1995).

Parâmetros e estratégias de leitura e escrita utilizados por crianças de escolas pública e privada

OBJETIVOS: comparar o desempenho de bons e maus leitores e escritores de escola pública e privada na leitura em voz alta e escrita sob ditado quanto aos parâmetros de escrita e fluência de leitura, além de verificar as estratégias de leitura e escrita utilizadas por essas crianças. MÉTODO: 61escolares, do 4º e 5º ano do Ensino Fundamental de uma escola da rede pública (GPU) e outra de ensino privado (GPr) foram submetidos ao Teste de Desempenho Escolar, para classificação em bom e mau leitor e escritor; e à leitura em voz alta e escrita de palavras e pseudopalavras, para verificação do desempenho quanto ao total de acertos em leitura e escrita, taxa e acurácia de leitura e acurácia de escrita, bem como as estratégias de leitura/escrita utilizadas. RESULTADOS: de maneira geral, o desempenho dos participantes de escola privada foi superior aos de escola pública. Observou-se melhor desempenho na leitura que na escrita; em palavras que em pseudopalavras; em palavras de alta frequência que em palavras de baixa frequência; e em palavras regulares que em irregulares. Os efeitos encontrados na leitura e na escrita foram os mesmos para escola pública e privada. CONCLUSÃO: os aspectos sociais e pedagógicos influenciam no desempenho de leitura e escrita. No grupo estudado foram observados os efeitos de lexicalidade, regularidade e frequência, não evidenciando o uso preferencial de uma ou outra rota de leitura e escrita. O tipo de escola não parece interferir na estratégia de leitura/escrita usada pelas crianças.

Reading the wrong way with the right hemisphere.

Reading is a complex process, drawing on a variety of brain functions in order to link symbols to words and concepts. The three major brain areas linked to reading and phonological analysis include the left temporoparietal region, the left occipitotemporal region and the inferior frontal gyrus. Decreased activation of the left posterior language system in dyslexia is well documented but there is relatively limited attention given to the role of the right hemisphere. The current study investigated differences in right and left hemisphere activation between individuals with dyslexia and non-impaired readers in lexical decision tasks (regular words, irregular words, pseudowords) during functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). Results revealed the expected hypo-activation in the left posterior areas in those with dyslexia but also areas of overactivation in the right hemisphere. During pseudoword decisions, for example, adults with dyslexia showed more right inferior occipital gyrus activation than controls. In general the increased activation of left-hemisphere language areas found in response to both regular and pseudowords was absent in dyslexics. Laterality indices showed that while controls showed left lateralised activation of the temporal lobe during lexical decision making, dyslexic readers showed right activation. Findings will inform theories of reading and will have implications for the design of reading interventions.

The predictive relations between non‐alphanumeric rapid naming and growth in regular and irregular word decoding in at‐risk readers

We investigated influences of non‐alphanumeric rapid naming on decoding skill growth for regularly and irregularly spelled English words. In a longitudinal study, 52 at‐risk and 69 not‐at‐risk readers were tracked from Grade 1 to Grade 3. Non‐alphanumeric rapid naming ability measured in Grade 1 accounted for unique variance in irregular word decoding in early Grade 2 – strong rapid naming was associated with strong irregular word decoding. An interaction between reading risk status and Grade 1 rapid naming indicated that the influence of Grade 1 rapid naming ability on growth in irregular word decoding was different for at‐risk than not‐at‐risk readers. Non‐alphanumeric rapid naming can have predictive validity as a marker for identifying specific difficulties in learning to read irregular words in at‐risk readers. Results indicate that rapid naming plays a general role in irregular word reading and a specific role in at‐risk readers' growth in irregular word decoding.

PROCESY ZACHODZĄCE W OŚRODKOWEJ CZĘŚCI UKŁADU SŁUCHOWEGO POZWALAJĄ PRZEWIDZIEĆ UMIEJĘTNOŚĆ CZYTANIA U DZIECI Z DYSLEKSJĄ ROZWOJOWĄ

BackgroundIn this paper we showed predictive relationships between central auditory processes, phonological abilities, and reading abilities in children diagnosed with developmental dyslexia (DD). Both empirical data and theoretical approaches indicate that central auditory processing deficits may contribute to developmental dyslexia; however, associations between reading and phonological skills and central auditory processes remain unclear.Material and MethodsExactly 57 children with dyslexia and 40 age- and gender-matched normal reading children performed reading, phonological, and auditory information processing tests, i.e. the Frequency Pattern Test (FPT), Dichotic Digit Test (DDT), and Gap Detection Test (GDT).ResultsDyslexic children showed parallel reading, phonological, and auditory information processing deficits. Principal component analysis, performed in dyslexic and normal reading children to reduce the data set before exploring the predictors of language skills, revealed three factors: 1) ‘Auditory processing’, which received high loadings from phonological, FPT, and DDT for the right ear; 2) ‘Age and Cognition’, including chronological age as well as measures of fluid intelligence and auditory working memory span; and 3) ‘Dichotic listening’ for the left ear. All three factors together best predicted reading regular words in children diagnosed with DD, while ‘Auditory processing’ and ‘Age and cognition’ together explained most of the variance while predicting pseudo-word reading.ConclusionsThe present study indicates that frequency pattern recognition, dichotic listening for the right year, and phonological awareness are strongly interrelated and constitute the most significant predictor of reading abilities in children diagnosed with dyslexia. The results may have important implications for diagnosis and therapy of language disorders.

Are acronyms really irregular? Preserved acronym reading in a case of semantic dementia

This paper describes the progressive performance of JD, a patient with semantic dementia, on acronym categorisation, recognition and reading aloud over a period of 18 months. Most acronyms have orthographic and phonological configurations that are different from English words (BBC, DVD, HIV). While some acronyms, the majority, are regularly pronounced letter by letter, others are pronounced in a more holistic, and irregular, way (NASA, AWOL). Semantic dementia at its moderate stage shows deficits in irregular word reading while reading accuracy for regular words and novel words is preserved. Nothing is known about acronym comprehension and reading ability in semantic dementia. Thus, in this study we explore for the first time the impact that semantic decline has on acronym recognition and reading processes. The decline in JD's semantic system led to increasingly impaired semantic categorisation and lexical decision for acronyms relative to healthy controls. However, her accuracy for reading aloud regular acronyms (i.e. those pronounced letter by letter such as BBC) remained near ceiling while reading irregular acronyms (i.e. those pronounced as mainstream words such as NASA) demonstrated impairment. It is therefore argued that consequences of semantic impairment vary across acronym types, a finding that informs our understanding of any reading account of this growing class of words.