Words Aloud Research Articles

An examination of age-related changes in the control of lexical and sublexical pathways in mapping spelling to sound

ABSTRACTThe current study investigated the extent to which young and older adults are able to direct attention to distinct processes in mapping spelling onto sound. Young and older adults completed either a speeded pronunciation task (reading aloud words) or regularization task (pronouncing words based on spelling-to-sound correspondences, e.g., pronouncing PINT such that it rhymes with HINT) in order to bias processing of lexical, whole-word information, or sublexical, spelling-to-sound mapping, respectively. Both younger and older adults produced reduced word-frequency effects and lexicality effects in the regularization task compared to the normal pronunciation task. Importantly, compared to younger adults, older adults produced exaggerated effects of task (i.e., pronunciation vs. regularization) on the observed frequency and lexicality effects. These results highlight both the flexibility of the lexical processing system and changes in the influence of the underlying lexical route due to additional 50 years of reading experience and/or changes in attentional control.

Triangulation of the neurocomputational architecture underpinning reading aloud

The goal of cognitive neuroscience is to integrate cognitive models with knowledge about underlying neural machinery. This significant challenge was explored in relation to word reading, where sophisticated computational-cognitive models exist but have made limited contact with neural data. Using distortion-corrected functional MRI and dynamic causal modeling, we investigated the interactions between brain regions dedicated to orthographic, semantic, and phonological processing while participants read words aloud. We found that the lateral anterior temporal lobe exhibited increased activation when participants read words with irregular spellings. This area is implicated in semantic processing but has not previously been considered part of the reading network. We also found meaningful individual differences in the activation of this region: Activity was predicted by an independent measure of the degree to which participants use semantic knowledge to read. These characteristics are predicted by the connectionist Triangle Model of reading and indicate a key role for semantic knowledge in reading aloud. Premotor regions associated with phonological processing displayed the reverse characteristics. Changes in the functional connectivity of the reading network during irregular word reading also were consistent with semantic recruitment. These data support the view that reading aloud is underpinned by the joint operation of two neural pathways. They reveal that (i) the ATL is an important element of the ventral semantic pathway and (ii) the division of labor between the two routes varies according to both the properties of the words being read and individual differences in the degree to which participants rely on each route.

For richer or poorer? Imageability effects in semantic dementia patients’ reading aloud

The degree to which a word's meaning evokes a mental image exerts an influence on performance across a variety of conceptual and linguistic tasks. In normal healthy participants, this effect takes the form of an advantage for high over low imageability words. Consideration of the influence of imageability on performance of patients with semantic dementia can provide information concerning its cognitive and neural bases. Semantic dementia patients show deficits in conceptual processing tasks, and an associated enhancement of the advantage for high over low imageability words. Semantic dementia patients also show deficits in linguistic processing tasks, including reading aloud words with inconsistent spelling–sound correspondences. This study provides the first systematic exploration of the influence of imageability on semantic dementia patients’ reading aloud performance. Over 10 cases, the imageability effect seen for inconsistent words was actually reversed in reaction times, with faster performance for low than high imageability items. The same reversal was observed for inconsistent words when the frequency of legitimate alternative reading of components errors was considered, and this reversed effect grew larger with increasing semantic impairment. This result is interpreted in terms of the development of stronger connections along the direct pathway between spelling and sound for low than high imageability items that are then revealed under diminished semantic activation. This interpretation emphasises the interaction between form and meaning that occurs throughout learning in connectionist models.

Transposed-letter priming effects in reading aloud words and nonwords.

A masked nonword prime generated by transposing adjacent inner letters in a word (e.g., jugde) facilitates the recognition of the target word (JUDGE) more than a prime in which the relevant letters are replaced by different letters (e.g., junpe). This transposed-letter (TL) priming effect has been widely interpreted as evidence that the coding of letter position is flexible, rather than precise. Although the TL priming effect has been extensively investigated in the domain of visual word recognition using the lexical decision task, very few studies have investigated this empirical phenomenon in reading aloud. In the present study, we investigated TL priming effects in reading aloud words and nonwords and found that these effects are of equal magnitude for the two types of items. We take this result as support for the view that the TL priming effect arises from noisy perception of letter order within the prime prior to the mapping of orthography to phonology.

Assessing the Relationship Between Prosody and Reading Outcomes in Children Using the PEPS-C

This study investigated the relationship between both receptive and expressive prosody and each of three reading outcomes: accuracy of reading aloud words, accuracy of reading aloud nonwords, and comprehension. Participants were 63 children aged 7 to 12 years. To assess prosody, we used the Profiling Elements of Prosody in Speech Communication (PEPS-C; Peppé & McCann, 2003). Results revealed that certain subtests of the PEPS-C predicted a substantial proportion of variance across reading outcomes, even after age and segmental phonological awareness have been considered. In fact, our findings suggest that the PEPS-C compares favourably with a well-established test of segmental phonological awareness, the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing (CTOPP; Wagner, Torgesen, & Rashotte, 1999), in terms of its power to predict variability in children’s reading.

Morphological priming during language switching: an ERP study.

Bilingual language control (BLC) is a much-debated issue in recent literature. Some models assume BLC is achieved by various types of inhibition of the non-target language, whereas other models do not assume any inhibitory mechanisms. In an event-related potential (ERP) study involving a long-lag morphological priming paradigm, participants were required to name pictures and read aloud words in both their L1 (Dutch) and L2 (English). Switch blocks contained intervening L1 items between L2 primes and targets, whereas non-switch blocks contained only L2 stimuli. In non-switch blocks, target picture names that were morphologically related to the primes were named faster than unrelated control items. In switch blocks, faster response latencies were recorded for morphologically related targets as well, demonstrating the existence of morphological priming in the L2. However, only in non-switch blocks, ERP data showed a reduced N400 trend, possibly suggesting that participants made use of a post-lexical checking mechanism during the switch block.

Incremental learning of difficult words in story contexts: the role of spelling and pronouncing new vocabulary

In this exploratory study we examine the value of exposure to the spelling and pronunciation of word forms when introducing the meanings of new and difficult vocabulary words. Kindergarten English learners were randomly assigned to one of two types of storybook reading delivered by tutors. Students in both treatments listened to short stories containing novel target words. In both groups, students were told the meanings of the difficult words when they first appeared in the stories. However, in one of the groups (Definitions-Plus), students were also shown the printed words when they first appeared in the stories, and were asked to pronounce and spell the words aloud. Vocabulary learning was assessed with three researcher-designed measures including receptive vocabulary, vocabulary definitions, and spelling. Results showed that both groups made significant gains on all three measures, with average gains of 8, 4, and 3 %, respectively. Moreover, the Definitions-Plus group had significantly greater spelling gains (d = .57), and exhibited similar, albeit nonsignificant, trends on vocabulary gains (ds = .30 and .41 for receptive and definitional vocabulary, respectively). Results extend previous studies’ results to younger English learner students on general benefits of novel word exposure in story contexts, and specific benefits for spelling and pronunciation practice in learning new words.

The production effect in memory: multiple species of distinctiveness.

The production effect is the difference in memory favoring words read aloud relative to words read silently during study. According to a currently popular explanation, the distinctiveness of aloud words relative to silent words at the time of encoding underlies the better memory for the former. This distinctiveness is attributable to the additional dimension(s) of encoding for the aloud items that can be subsequently used during retrieval. In this study we argue that encoding distinctiveness is not the sole source of distinctiveness and that, in fact, there is an independent source of distinctiveness, statistical distinctiveness, which may or may not work in harmony with encoding distinctiveness in influencing memory. Statistical distinctiveness refers to the relative size of a subset of items marked by a(ny) unique property. Silently read words can carry statistical distinctiveness if they form a salient minority on the background of a majority of vocalized words. We show that, when the two sources are placed in opposition, statistical distinctiveness modifies the PE in a profound way.

Dictating a Zafa: The Power of Narrative Form in Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Junot Díaz’s novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007) plays on the tensions between the two definitions of dictate: on the one hand, to order or command authoritatively and absolutely and, on the other hand, to speak aloud words that are to be written down or transcribed. This article argues that the novel’s narrative techniques and formal structures dictate, or tell, a story against dictatorship, analyzing how the novel manipulates the character-system and modes of narration to resist oppressive domination. First, I explicate how the novel marginalizes and parodies the dictator and centralizes socially marginalized characters in the overall narrative structure to challenge authoritarian power and hegemonic discourses. Subsequently, I demonstrate how the novel mobilizes underground storytelling modes—specifically hearsay, footnotes, and silences—formally to represent and critique the dissemination and repression of information under dictatorship. I end by situating The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao in an emerging set of dictatorship novels written by Latina/os, arguing that contemporary Latino authors such as Díaz are generating a counter-dictatorial imaginary rooted in intersectional analyses of authoritarianism, racial domination, heteropatriarchy, and imperialism in the hemisphere.

The direction of word stress processing in German: evidence from a working memory paradigm.

There are contradicting assumptions and findings on the direction of word stress processing in German. To resolve this question, we asked participants to read tri-syllabic non-words and stress ambiguous words aloud. Additionally, they also performed a working memory (WM) task (2-back task). In non-word reading, participants’ individual WM capacity was positively correlated with assignment of main stress to the antepenultimate syllable, which is most distant to the word’s right edge, while a (complementary) negative correlation was observed with assignment of stress to the ultimate syllable. There was no significant correlation between WM capacity and stress assignment to the penultimate syllable, which has been claimed to be the default stress pattern in German. In reading stress ambiguous words, a similar but non-significant pattern was observed as in non-word reading. In sum, our results provide first psycholinguistic evidence supporting leftward stress processing in German. Our results do not lend support to the assumption of penultimate default stress in German. A specification of the lemma model is proposed which seems able to reconcile our findings and apparently contradicting assumptions and evidence.

Basic Processes in Reading Aloud and Colour Naming: Towards a Better Understanding of the Role of Spatial Attention

Whether or not lexical access from print requires spatial attention has been debated intensively for the last 30 years. Studies involving colour naming generally find evidence that "unattended" words are processed. In contrast, reading-based experiments do not find evidence of distractor processing. One theory ascribes the discrepancy to weaker attentional demands for colour identification. If colour naming does not capture all of a subject's attention, the remaining attentional resources can be deployed to process the distractor word. The present study combined exogenous spatial cueing with colour naming and reading aloud separately and found that colour naming is less sensitive to the validity of a spatial cue than is reading words aloud. Based on these results, we argue that colour naming studies do not effectively control attention so that no conclusions about unattended distractor processing can be drawn from them. Thus we reiterate the consistent conclusion drawn from reading aloud and lexical decision studies: There is no word identification without (spatial) attention.

Tone as a primary perceptual cue in cross-linguistic speech perception: A comparison of Cantonese and Mandarin second-language speech of English clusters

The study examined the patterns of production and perception of L1 Cantonese and Mandarin speakers for English consonant-/l/ clusters in five consonant conditions (/ph, th, kh, f, s/) and three vowel conditions (/i, a, u/). Five Cantonese, 5 Mandarin, and 5 native English speakers were assigned to read aloud words in C[l]V and C[l]VC structure in carrier sentences. Results showed that Cantonese speakers’ /l/ was often reduced, indicated by a shorter average duration of the CV transition compared with native English speakers. However, Mandarin speakers showed a longer duration in the same measurement. Despite the identical segmental and syllable structures of these two languages in the involved words, realizations were different. Nevertheless, we found pitch patterns of Mandarin speech of L2 English featured falling tone, whereas Cantonese speakers utilized level tones. To further examine the tonal effect, we normalized the tone from the production results to a level tone at 200 Hz and presented them, together with productions with real inserted vowels in between C and /l/, to another group of Mandarin and Cantonese speakers to discriminate in an ABX paradigm. Mandarin speakers scored a significantly lower accuracy rate, indicating that their perception of duration was influenced by tone structure.

Instructions Given During Insertion of Complete Denture

• Limitation of the dentures: It is mechanical substitutes for oral living tissue. Individuality of a patient, not compares him to other persons, and educates the patient to the fact that every mouth is different. • Remove dentures from mouth at night: The patient should remove the denture at night because the denture will exert excessive pressure on the bone of both maxilla and mandible which lead to increase the rate of resorption of the bone that will lead to flat ridge and consequently loss of retention and stability. • Expected tissue response: Such as increase saliva at the time of insertion because the C.D. is consider a strange things, but this with time will decrease gradually [2,3]. • Appearance and C.D: Patient must understand their appearance will become more natural with time, strange bulky muscle tension will improve after the patient relax and more confident. If the patient is unhappy with their appearance occasionally the anterior teeth must be changed. • Evaluating the denture esthetic: This is done by evaluating the patient lip support, high lip line, low lip line. These factors are usually examined thoroughly during try-in stage, simple verification would be sufficient. • Speaking with Complete denture: The problem of speaking will disappear and the tongue adapt within a few weeks. Patient could be advised to read aloud and repeat words or phrases that are difficult to pronounce which contain letters such as “s”, “sh”, so the patient should read the newspaper out loud or “talk back” to the television if he is alone. In natural environment: the rugae enhance speech, but in a denture speech is affected due to the absence of rugae. Metal denture base improve speech because the metal can be fabricated thin enough to reproduce the rugae on the external surface [4]. • Care of the prostheses and tissues: The dentures must be kept very clean to prevent the fouling of food particles and the overgrowth of bacteria. It is best to brush the dentures by using any mild hand soap but do not use an abrasive soap or cleanser or tooth paste because most of them contain an abrasive material that will wear away the surface of acrylic resin. In case of handicapped patients, cleaning of the dentures by using suction hooks placed in composite. A daily gentle massage with a soft nylon toothbrush helps to increase the circulation [1,3]. • Chewing with complete denture: Learning to chew with new dentures requires 6-8 weeks. Patient begin to chew relatively soft food that cut into small pieces done on both sides at the same time and food swallow with simple push of tongue against the palate. Every day try something new. When bite such as a sandwich place the food between their teeth toward the corner of the mouth rather than between the anterior teeth then the food push inward and upward to break it apart [4].

Individual differences in reading aloud: A mega-study, item effects, and some models

Normal individual differences are rarely considered in the modelling of visual word recognition – with item response time effects and neuropsychological disorders being given more emphasis – but such individual differences can inform and test accounts of the processes of reading. We thus had 100 participants read aloud words selected to assess theoretically important item response time effects on an individual basis. Using two major models of reading aloud – DRC and CDP+ – we estimated numerical parameters to best model each individual’s response times to see if this would allow the models to capture the effects, individual differences in them and the correlations among these individual differences. It did not. We therefore created an alternative model, the DRC-FC, which successfully captured more of the correlations among individual differences, by modifying the locus of the frequency effect. Overall, our analyses indicate that (i) even after accounting for individual differences in general speed, several other individual difference in reading remain significant; and (ii) these individual differences provide critical tests of models of reading aloud. The database thus offers a set of important constraints for future modelling of visual word recognition, and is a step towards integrating such models with other knowledge about individual differences in reading.

P 61. Is high frequency rTMS a new tool in remediating dyslexia?

Introduction Evidence from functional neuroimaging has reported hypoactivation of the left parieto-temporal regions in children and adults with dyslexia when they engage in reading-related tasks (Shaywitz et al., 2002; Richlan et al., 2011). Studies on the remediation of dyslexia have consistently found that remedial treatment improves reading ability and increases activation in critical brain areas (Temple et al., 2003; Hoeft et al., 2011). Objectives We wanted to determine whether high frequency repetitive trancranial magnetic stimulation (hf-rTMS) over areas that are underactive in dyslexics during reading, such as the left superior temporal gyrus (STG) and the left inferior parietal lobe (IPL), would improve the reading performance of dyslexic adults. Materials and methods Ten dyslexics performed three reading tasks (reading aloud words, non-words and text) in seven experimental conditions: following 5Hz-rTMS over the IPL and STG (target sites) bilaterally (left and right hemisphere); following 5Hz-rTMS over the vertex (control site); in two conditions without rTMS (no-TMS or baseline). Reading accuracy (number of errors) and speed (onset reaction times-RTs-for word and non-word reading; number of syllables read in the text per second-syll/sec) were calculated. Stimulus consisted of seven sets of 30 words (15 trisyllabic and 15 disyllabic) with high frequency in Italian written texts, 30 non-words (15 trisyllabic and 15 disyllabic), and texts over 600 syllables long. Brain stimulation consisted of ten rTMS trains of 50 stimuli at 5-Hz frequency (stimulation time, 10s); stimuli were delivered at 100% of the motor threshold. The coil was placed tangential to the skull over P3, P4, P5 and P6 of the 10–20 EEG system and over the vertex. Results Non-word reading errors after both left and right IPL stimulations were significantly fewer than all other conditions. Text reading errors following L-STG stimulation were fewer than all other conditions. Word-reading RTs after left STG stimulation were shorter than all other conditions. Furthermore, non-word reading RTs after left IPL stimulation were shorter than Vertex and Baseline, but not than other conditions. Notably, no differences emerged between the Vertex and mean Baseline thus indicating the absence of unspecific effects related to rTMS per se. Conclusion The study shows that hf-rTMS is effective in improving the reading accuracy and speed of dyslexics and that the effect is strictly task-related and site-specific. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study which demonstrates that distinctive facilitation of neural pathways known to be underactive in dyslexics improves their reading performance. Although preliminary, these findings could suggest new treatment perspectives for the development of long-term specific treatments for dyslexia.

Remembered study mode: Support for the distinctiveness account of the production effect

The production effect is the finding that words spoken aloud at study are subsequently remembered better than are words read silently at study. According to the distinctiveness account, aloud words are remembered better because the act of speaking those words aloud is encoded and later recovery of this information can be used to infer that those words were studied. An alternative account (the strength-based account) is that memory strength is simply greater for words read aloud. To discriminate these two accounts, we investigated study mode judgements (i.e., “aloud”/”silent”/”new” ratings): The strength-based account predicts that “aloud” responses should positively correlate with memory strength, whereas the distinctiveness account predicts that accuracy of study mode judgements will be independent of memory strength. Across three experiments, where the strength of some silent words was increased by repetition, study mode was discriminable regardless of strength—even when the strength of aloud and repeated silent items was equivalent. Consistent with the distinctiveness account, we conclude that memory for “aloudness” is independent of memory strength and a likely candidate to explain the production effect.

Don’t just repeat after me: Retrieval practice is better than imitation for foreign vocabulary learning

Second language (L2) instruction programs often ask learners to repeat aloud words spoken by a native speaker. However, recent research on retrieval practice has suggested that imitating native pronunciation might be less effective than drill instruction, wherein the learner is required to produce the L2 words from memory (and given feedback). We contrasted the effectiveness of imitation and retrieval practice drills on learning L2 spoken vocabulary. Learners viewed pictures of objects and heard their names; in the imitation condition, they heard and then repeated aloud each name, whereas in the retrieval practice condition, they tried to produce the name before hearing it. On a final test administered either immediately after training (Exp. 1) or after a 2-day delay (Exp. 2), retrieval practice produced better comprehension of the L2 words, better ability to produce the L2 words, and no loss of pronunciation quality.

Developmental dyslexia in a regular orthography: Can the reading profile be reduced to strategic control?

In languages with regular orthographies, the identification of different forms of reading impairment (such as surface or phonological dyslexia) has proved elusive. Alternatively, it has been proposed that different patterns of errors depend upon strategic choices on the part of the reader. The present study aimed to test this strategic interpretation by evaluating the effectiveness of instructions to read quickly (or accurately) in modifying the reading rate and types of errors of dyslexic children. Further, drawing on an error classification based on the contrast between sounding-out behaviour and word substitution, we examined the types of reading error that best characterize the deficit in a language with regular orthography (Italian). Thirty children with dyslexia and 30 chronologically age-matched controls read aloud passages and word lists with instructions to emphasize either rate or accuracy. When asked to read quickly, children with dyslexia increased their reading rate (although less than skilled children). However, the type of instructions had little influence on reading errors. Therefore, the results did not support the view that strategic control has an important role in modulating the types of reading errors made by children with dyslexia. For word lists, sounding-out behaviour, errors in stress assignment, and form-related nonwords were useful to correctly identifying children with dyslexia. For text passages, sounding-out behaviour and form-related errors were the best predictors of group membership. Thus, specific types of errors are a fundamental component of the reading deficit in children who speak a language with regular orthography over and above their reading slowness.

Intact reading in patients with profound early visual dysfunction

Despite substantial neuroscientific evidence for a region of visual cortex dedicated to the processing of written words, many studies continue to reject explanations of letter-by-letter (LBL) reading in terms of impaired word form representations or parallel letter processing in favour of more general deficits of visual function. In the current paper, we demonstrate that whilst LBL reading is often associated with general visual deficits, these deficits are not necessarily sufficient to cause reading impairment and have led to accounts of LBL reading which are based largely on evidence of association rather than causation. We describe two patients with posterior cortical atrophy (PCA) who exhibit remarkably preserved whole word and letter reading despite profound visual dysfunction. Relative to controls, both patients demonstrated impaired performance on tests of early visual, visuoperceptual and visuospatial processing; visual acuity was the only skill preserved in both individuals. By contrast, both patients were able to read aloud words with perfect to near-perfect accuracy. Reading performance was also rapid with no overall significant difference in response latencies relative to age- and education-matched controls. Furthermore, the patients violated a key prediction of general visual accounts of LBL reading – that pre-lexical impairments should result in prominent word length effects; in the two reported patients, evidence for abnormal word length effects was equivocal or absent, and certainly an order of magnitude different to that reported for LBL readers. We argue that general visual accounts cannot explain the pattern of reading data reported, and attribute the preserved reading performance to preserved direct access to intact word form representations and/or parallel letter processing mechanisms. The current data emphasise the need for much clearer evidence of causality when attempting to draw connections between specific aspects of visual processing and different types of acquired peripheral dyslexia.

Pirates at parties: Letter position processing in developing readers

There has been much recent interest in letter position coding in adults, but little is known about the development of this process in children learning to read. Here, the letter position coding abilities of 127 children in Grades 2, 3, and 4 (aged 7–10years) were examined by comparing their performance in reading aloud “migratable” words (e.g., bread, three, diary) with that in reading aloud words without potential for migration (e.g., heard, boot, bitter). Across all three grade levels, children made many more errors on migratable words than on non-migratable words, and the proportion of migration errors did not decrease with increasing grade level. Within each grade, a tendency to make a high proportion of migration errors was not associated with deficits in other reading subprocesses or with general lexical guessing; indeed, it was associated with strong lexical reading skills. We conclude that letter position coding is generally fragile in developing readers and that this interacts with lexical knowledge to produce migration errors in reading.