Syllable Frequency Effects Research Articles

Syllable frequency effects in Spanish handwriting production

This study was concerned with the nature of the sublexical units that are functional during the process of writing words in normal adults. Specifically, we focused on the role of syllables in Spanish handwriting. Participants were asked to write down trisyllabic words. In the experiment, a graphic tablet was used and the frequency of the second syllable was manipulated in the stimuli while controlling for bigram frequency. The latencies, letter durations and temporal intervals between letters were measured. The results showed an effect of syllable frequency on the interval between the first and second letter of the second syllable: the interval was shorter for high-frequency than for low-frequency syllables. An opposite effect was observed for the duration of the first letter of the critic syllable. No effect was found on the interval previous to the second syllable. These results confirm recent findings supporting the claim that syllables are involved during the handwriting production process and provide new information on the mechanisms underlying these syllabic effects.

Do We Have a “Mental Syllabary” in the Brain? An fMRI Study

The present study combines functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and reaction time (RT) measurements to further elucidate the influence of syllable frequency and complexity on speech motor control processes, i.e., overt reading of pseudowords. Tying in with a recent fMRI-study of our group we focused on the concept of a mental syllabary housing syllable sized ready-made motor plans for high- (HF), but not low-frequency (LF) syllables. The RT-analysis disclosed a frequency effect weakened by a simultaneous complexity effect for HF-syllables. In contrast, the fMRI data revealed no effect of syllable frequency, but point to an impact of syllable structure: Compared with CV-items, syllables with a complex onset (CCV) yielded higher hemodynamic activation in motor "execution" areas (left sensorimotor cortex, right inferior cerebellum), which is at least partially compatible with our previous study. We discuss the role of the syllable in speech motor control.

The nature of the phonological processing in French dyslexic children: evidence for the phonological syllable and linguistic features' role in silent reading and speech discrimination

This study investigated the status of phonological representations in French dyslexic children (DY) compared with reading level- (RL) and chronological age-matched (CA) controls. We focused on the syllable's role and on the impact of French linguistic features. In Experiment 1, we assessed oral discrimination abilities of pairs of syllables that varied as a function of voicing, mode or place of articulation, or syllable structure. Results suggest that DY children underperform controls with a 'speed-accuracy' deficit. However, DY children exhibit some similar processing than those highlighted in controls. As in CA and RL controls, DY children have difficulties in processing two sounds that only differ in voicing, and preferentially process obstruent rather than fricative sounds, and more efficiently process CV than CCV syllables. In Experiment 2, we used a modified version of the Colé, Magnan, and Grainger's (Applied Psycholinguistics 20:507-532, 1999) paradigm. Results show that DY children underperform CA controls but outperform RL controls. However, as in CA and RL controls, data reveal that DY children are able to use phonological procedures influenced by initial syllable frequency. Thus, DY children process syllabically high-frequency syllables but phonemically process low-frequency syllables. They also exhibit lexical and syllable frequency effects. Consequently, results provide evidence that DY children performances can be accounted for by laborious phonological syllable-based procedures and also degraded phonological representations.

Simulating syllable frequency effects within an interactive activation framework

Simulation data are presented for a novel computational model of visual word recognition containing syllabic representation units. The model is based on the multiple readout model MROM (Grainger & Jacobs, 1996) and it was used to simulate data from a syllable frequency experiment. The model successfully simulates the inhibitory syllable frequency effect in lexical decision obtained so far in Spanish, German, and French. In addition, this model, fully representing the principles of interactive activation between the three representation layers of letter, syllable, and word units, proved successful in correctly parsing all presented stimuli contained in its lexicon with different types of syllabic structures. Multiple regression analyses on the model's output and on human data confirmed the model's ability to still account for effects of word frequency and orthographic neighbourhood like the original MROM (Grainger & Jacobs, 1996) it was derived from.

Syllable frequency effects in a context-sensitive segment production model

In this study we describe a new model of how phonetic knowledge guides speech production. In the Context Sequence model, target acoustic patterns are determined based on selection of previously heard or produced sounds from a memory store. Since signals in the memory correspond to long stretches of continuous speech, individual speech sounds always appear in a larger context. A key property of the model is that the selection of exemplars for production is weighted by the similarity of the contexts in which they originally occurred to the current production context. In two simulations based on realistic amplitude envelope data extracted from a large single-speaker production corpus, we demonstrate that (1) optimal selection of context-appropriate segment-level exemplars requires consideration of about 0.5 s of context material preceding and following exemplars and (2) context-dependent production at this low level may be responsible for a range of frequency effects that have previously been assumed to involve word, syllable, and other higher levels of organization.

The Functional Origin of the Foreign Accent

Individuals who speak more than one language often do so with a foreign accent in their second language. Previous investigations have focused on the acoustic phonetic properties of speech, showing how language-learning history shapes the occurrence of accent. By contrast, little is known about the phonological and phonetic representations that allow the production of each language within one speaker. We investigated this issue via the syllable-frequency effect, thought to index the retrieval of syllable-size representations during speech production. We tested French-Spanish early and late bilinguals in a task in which the materials’ syllabic frequency in both languages was manipulated. The frequency of syllables in the nonspoken language affected performance only with late bilinguals. This is interpreted as evidence that syllabic representations are shared across languages in late bilinguals but are separate in early bilinguals. One of the functional origins of foreign accent in late bilinguals may be the retrieval of syllabic representations shared across languages.

Syllable frequency effects in visual word recognition: Developmental approach in French children

This study investigates the syllable's role in the normal reading acquisition of French children at three grade levels (1st, 3rd, and 5th), using a modified version of Colé, Magnan, and Grainger's (1999) paradigm. We focused on the effects of syllable frequency and word frequency. The results suggest that from the first to third years of reading instruction, children process high-frequency syllables as syllable units while processing low-frequency syllables as phoneme units. In fifth graders, syllable-based processing is extended to both high and low syllable frequencies, primarily due to CVC structures with high-frequency syllables. Lexical frequency does not significantly influence syllable processing. These findings reveal that the syllable is an early prelexical unit modulated initially by syllable frequency, and subsequently by grapheme-to-phoneme correspondences. High-frequency syllables did not produce inhibitory effects. Consequently, results are compatible with Levelt and Wheeldon's (1994) mental syllabary hypothesis. Implications for specific reading training and syllable based remediation are discussed.

Effects of syllable preparation and syllable frequency in speech production: Further evidence for syllabic units at a post-lexical level

In the current paper, we asked at what level in the speech planning process speakers retrieve stored syllables. There is evidence that syllable structure plays an essential role in the phonological encoding of words (e.g., online syllabification and phonological word formation). There is also evidence that syllables are retrieved as whole units. However, findings that clearly pinpoint these effects to specific levels in speech planning are scarce. We used a naming variant of the implicit priming paradigm to contrast voice onset latencies for frequency-manipulated disyllabic Dutch pseudo-words. While prior implicit priming studies only manipulated the item's form and/or syllable structure overlap we introduced syllable frequency as an additional factor. If the preparation effect for syllables obtained in the implicit priming paradigm proceeds beyond phonological planning, i.e., includes the retrieval of stored syllables, then the preparation effect should differ for high- and low frequency syllables. The findings reported here confirm this prediction: Low-frequency syllables benefit significantly more from the preparation than high-frequency syllables. Our findings support the notion of a mental syllabary at a post-lexical level, between the levels of phonological and phonetic encoding.

Syllables and bigrams: Orthographic redundancy and syllabic units affect visual word recognition at different processing levels.

Over the last decade, there has been increasing evidence for syllabic processing during visual word recognition. If syllabic effects prove to be independent from orthographic redundancy, this would seriously challenge the ability of current computational models to account for the processing of polysyllabic words. Three experiments are presented to disentangle effects of the frequency of syllabic units and orthographic segments in lexical decision. In Experiment 1 the authors obtained an inhibitory syllable frequency effect that was unaffected by the presence or absence of a bigram trough at the syllable boundary. In Experiments 2 and 3 an inhibitory effect of initial syllable frequency but a facilitative effect of initial bigram frequency emerged when manipulating 1 of the 2 measures and controlling for the other in Spanish words starting with consonant-vowel syllables. The authors conclude that effects of syllable frequency and letter-cluster frequency are independent and arise at different processing levels of visual word recognition. Results are discussed within the framework of an interactive activation model of visual word recognition.

Is there a syllable frequency effect in aphasia or in apraxia of speech or both?

Background: The observation of a syllable frequency effect on production latencies in healthy speakers has been an argument in favour of stored syllables in speech production. In Levelt, Roelofs, and Meyer's (1999) model of speech production, syllabic representations are accessed during phonetic encoding. Neurolinguistic studies have provided convergent evidence of a syllable frequency effect on production accuracy in speakers with acquired language disorders. However, the observation that syllable frequency also affected production in aphasic speakers with a pre‐phonetic impairment (conduction aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia) seems in contradiction to the phonetic locus of syllabic representations. Aims: We illustrate the points of convergences and divergences between psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic results on the locus of the syllable frequency effect and explore whether a syllable frequency effect is observed in apraxia of speech (AoS) and in conduction aphasia when participants are tested with the same material. Methods & Procedures: Reading and repetition was elicited with monosyllabic words (Experiment A) and with bisyllabic pseudowords (Experiment B) composed of high‐ or low‐frequency syllables. Three speakers with AoS and three speakers with conduction aphasia participated in each experiment. Outcomes & Results: Both subgroups displayed a tendency for a syllable frequency effect on production accuracy. A significant effect of syllable frequency was observed in each experiment in a participant with AoS and in a participant with conduction aphasia. Conclusions: The data confirmed similar syllable frequency effects in speakers with AoS and in conduction aphasia when tested with the same eliciting material. We discuss these apparently contradictory observations and suggest an explanation for the origin of the syllable frequency effect in these two populations. I wish to thank Lindsey Nickels and Manuel Carreiras for their meticulous review and helpful comments on a previous version of the manuscript. Research supported by Swiss National Science Foundation Grant No. 105312‐108284.

Syllabic processing in visual word recognition in Alzheimer patients, elderly people, and young adults

Background: Over the last decade Carreiras and colleages have assembled compelling empirical evidence that the syllable plays an important role in the visual recognition of polysyllabic words in Spanish. One of the clearest demonstrations of this is the syllable frequency effect: Words with high‐frequency syllables are responded to more slowly than words with low‐frequency syllables. Another key finding is the syllable congruency effect that has been obtained using the masked priming technique: Word recognition is facilitated by primes that correspond to the first syllable, relative to primes that contain one letter more or less than the first syllable. Aims: The study aimed to investigate the syllable frequency effect and the syllable congruency effect in Alzheimer patients, elderly people, and young adults. The goal was to examine whether and to what extent syllabic processing is preserved or deteriorates with age and/or this disease. If structural components of language are to some extent preserved in Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients and in elderly people, they should show the syllable congruency effect. If AD patients and elderly people have a breakdown in the ability to inhibit partially activated information, the syllable frequency effect may well turn out to be different in these two groups as compared to the young adults. Methods & Procedures: Two experiments, one investigating the syllable frequency effect and the other the syllable congruency effect, were carried out with Alzheimer patients, elderly people, and young adults. In Experiment 1 we used the same materials and procedure used by Carreiras and Perea (2002) in their Experiment 4. In Experiment 2 we created new materials manipulating syllable frequency (high and low) and word frequency (high and low). AD patients, elderly people, and young controls participated in the two experiments. Outcomes & Results: The results showed syllable congruency effects, replicating previous findings. However, syllable frequency effects were different for the three groups. Predictably, young adults responded more slowly to words with high‐frequency syllables than to words with low‐frequency syllables. In contrast, Alzheimer patients and elderly people responded more slowly to words with low‐frequency syllables than to words with high frequency syllables. Conclusions: In the context of activation models that take into account a syllabic level of representation, the present results suggest that the syllabic layer is preserved but the inhibitory process of competition between lexical candidates is impaired in Alzheimer patients and in elderly people. The research reported in this article has been partially supported by Grants SEJ2004‐07680‐C02‐02/PSIC and SEJ2006‐09238/PSIC from the Spanish Ministry of Education to MC and from the Spanish Agency of International cooperation (AECI ) and Fundación Carolina to SB. We wish to thank Humberto Arboleda and Rodrigo Pardo of the Grupo de Neurociencias de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia for providing us with information about the patients’ diagnosis profile and for kindly allowing us access to the patients.

Influence of syllable complexity and frequency

Functional imaging studies have delineated a „minimal network for overt speech production“, encompassing mesiofrontal structures (supplementary motor area, anterior cingulate gyrus), bilateral pre- and postcentral convolutions, extending rostrally into posterior parts of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) of the language-dominant hemisphere, left anterior insula as well as bilateral components of the basal ganglia, the cerebellum, and the thalamus. In order to further elucidate the specific contribution of these cerebral regions to speech motor planning, subjects were asked to read aloud visually presented bisyllabic pseudowords during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The test stimuli systematically varied in onset complexity (CCV versus CV) and frequency of occurence (high frequency, HF, versus low frequency, LF) of the initial syllable. A cognitive subtraction approach revealed a significant main effect of syllable onset complexity (CCV versus CV) at the level of left posterior IFG, left anterior insula and both cerebellar hemispheres. Conceivably, these areas closely cooperate in the sequencing of subsyllabic aspects of the sound structure of verbal utterances. A significant main effect of syllable frequency (LF versus HF), by contrast, did not emerge. However, calculation of the time series of hemodynamic activation within the various cerebral structures engaged in speech motor control revealed this factor to enhance functional connectivity between Broca's area and ipsilateral anterior insula.

The syllable frequency effect in visual recognition of French words: a study in skilled and beginning readers

The present study addressed the issue of syllable activation during visual recognition of French words. In addition, it was investigated whether word orthographic information underlies syllable effects. To do so, words were selected according to the frequency of their first syllable (high versus low) and the frequency of the orthographic correspondence of this syllable (high versus low). For example, the high-frequency syllable /a/ is frequently transcribed by the orthographic cluster an, but infrequently transcribed by han in French. A lexical decision task was performed by skilled readers (Experiment 1) and beginning readers in Grade 5 (Experiment 2). Results yielded an inhibitory effect of syllable frequency in both experiments. Moreover, the reliable interaction between syllable frequency and orthographic correspondence frequency indicated that the syllable frequency effect was influenced by orthographic characteristics of syllables. Finally, data showed that the interaction between phonological and orthographic variables was modified with reading experience. The results are discussed in current models of visual word recognition.

An acoustic investigation into coarticulation and speech motor control: high vs. low frequency syllables

Psycholinguistic research of the mid nineties suggests that articulatory routines for high frequency syllables are stored in the form of gestural scores in a library. Syllable frequency effects on naming latency and utterance duration have been interpreted as supporting evidence for such a syllabary. This paper presents a data-subset from a project investigating speech motor learning as a function of syllable type. Fourteen native speakers of English were asked to listen to and repeat 16 mono-syllabic stimuli which belonged to either of two categories: high & low frequency syllables (CELEX). Acoustic coarticulation measures, i.e. F2 locus equations and absolute formant changes, were used to indirectly determine the degree of gestural overlap in articulatory movements. In addition, utterance durations were measured to determine speed of articulation. Significant syllable frequency effects were found for both F2 Locus equations (e.g. slope and R²), and utterance duration. High frequency syllables exhibited greater degrees of coarticulation (steeper slopes), greater overall consistency in their production (greater R²) and shorter utterance durations than low frequency syllables. These data provide some further supporting evidence that different syllable categories may be encoded differently during speech production.

The influence of syllable onset complexity and syllable frequency on speech motor control

Functional imaging studies have delineated a “minimal network for overt speech production”, encompassing mesiofrontal structures (supplementary motor area, anterior cingulate gyrus), bilateral pre- and postcentral convolutions, extending rostrally into posterior parts of the inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) of the language-dominant hemisphere, left anterior insula as well as bilateral components of the basal ganglia, the cerebellum, and the thalamus. In order to further elucidate the specific contribution of these cerebral regions to speech motor planning, subjects were asked to read aloud visually presented bisyllabic pseudowords during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The test stimuli systematically varied in onset complexity (CCV versus CV) and frequency of occurrence (high-frequency, HF versus low-frequency, LF) of the initial syllable. A cognitive subtraction approach revealed a significant main effect of syllable onset complexity (CCV versus CV) at the level of left posterior IFG, left anterior insula, and both cerebellar hemispheres. Conceivably, these areas closely cooperate in the sequencing of subsyllabic aspects of the sound structure of verbal utterances. A significant main effect of syllable frequency (LF versus HF), by contrast, did not emerge. However, calculation of the time series of hemodynamic activation within the various cerebral structures engaged in speech motor control revealed this factor to enhance functional connectivity between Broca’s area and ipsilateral anterior insula.

Contrasting effects of token and type syllable frequency in lexical decision

In psycholinguistic research, there is still considerable debate about whether the type or token count of the frequency of a particular unit of language better predicts word recognition performance. The present study extends this distinction of type and token measures to the investigation of possible causes underlying syllable frequency effects. In two lexical decision experiments, we found a dissociation suggesting that the token measure of syllable frequency adequately predicts the inhibitory effect of initial syllable frequency, whereas the type measure led to facilitation, especially when the number of higher frequency syllabic neighbours was controlled for. This specific pattern of results, suggesting the involvement of two different processes in effects of syllable frequency, provides a strong constraint for current and future models of visual word recognition.

Phonology as the source of syllable frequency effects in visual word recognition: Evidence from French

In order to investigate whether syllable frequency effects in visual word recognition can be attributed to phonologically or orthographically defined syllables, we designed one experiment that allowed six critical comparisons. Whereas only a weak effect was obtained when both orthographic and phonological syllable frequency were conjointly manipulated in Comparison 1, robust effects for phonological and null effects for orthographic syllable frequency were found in Comparisons 2 and 3. Comparisons 4 and 5 showed that the syllable frequency effect does not result from a confound with the frequency of letter or phoneme clusters at the beginning of words. The syllable frequency effect was shown to diminish with increasing word frequency in Comparison 6. These results suggest that visually presented polysyllabic words are parsed into phonologically defined syllables during visual word recognition. Materials and links may be accessed at www.psychonomic.org/archive.

Processing of Syllables in Production and Recognition Tasks

Empirical evidence for a functional role of syllables in visual word processing is abundant, however it remains rather heterogeneous. The present study aims to further specify the role of syllables and the cognitive accessibility of syllabic information in word processing. The first experiment compared performance across naming and lexical decision tasks by manipulating the number of syllables in words and non-words. Results showed a syllable number effect in both the naming task and the lexical decision task. The second experiment introduced a stimulus set consisting of isolated syllabic and non-syllabic trigrams. Syllable frequency was manipulated in a naming and in a decision task requiring participants to decide on the syllabic status of letter strings. Results showed faster responses for syllables than for non-syllables in both tasks. Syllable frequency effects were observed in the decision task. In summary, the results from these manipulations of different types of syllable information confirm an important role of syllabic units in both recognition and production.

Syllable frequency in lexical decision and naming of English words

The importance of phonological syllables in recognition and pronunciation of visual words has been demonstrated in languages with a high degree of spelling-sound correspondence. In Spanish, multisyllabic words with frequent first syllables are named more quickly than those with less frequent first syllables, but receive slower lexical decisions. The latter effect is attributed to lexical competition from other words beginning with the same syllable. We examined syllable frequency effects on naming and lexical decision for 3029 visually presented words in English, a language with a high degree of irregularity in spelling/sound relationships, and in which phonological syllables are less clearly marked in printed words. The results showed facilitative effects of syllable frequency in both tasks, and these were stronger when syllables were defined orthographically than phonologically. The results suggest that activation of lexical candidates based on a syllabic code does not occur rapidly enough to interfere with lexical decision in English.

Syllable frequency effects in French visual word recognition: An ERP study

This study examined event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with differences in the frequency of the initial syllable of target words whose syllabic structure provided either a match or mismatch with the /CV/ and /CVC/ syllables under analysis. Results showed ERP effects that were consistent with syllabic activation between 300 and 600 ms, with high frequency syllables producing more positive potentials than those of low frequency. The syllabic locus of these effects was verified by their presence only in the matched syllabic condition, showing that frequency effects respected known syllable boundaries. Syllable frequency effects were also noted in an earlier time window, between 150 and 300 ms. However, these effects were only seen when manipulating /CVC/ frequency, not /CV/, and were common to both the matched and unmatched conditions. These results suggest that phoneme representations are directly activated following presentation of a printed word, and syllable representations are only activated following phoneme activation.