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The role of positional information during reading in children and adults

The role of positional information during reading in children and adults
The role of positional information during reading in children and adults
Despite a large body of evidence investigating how letter-position information is encoded during lexical-processing during both isolated-word and reading paradigms, it is still not clear whether the mechanism to encode letter-position information is modulated by age and/or reading ability. The aim of the present research was to investigate developmental changes in letter-position encoding during reading. The first experiment investigated the influence of letter-position encoding on the time course of lexical and post-lexical processing during reading. It examined whether the prior exposure of a word’s transposed-letter neighbour (TLN) earlier in the same sentence interfered with that word identification in skilled-adult-readers. Results showed that in skilled-readers, TLNs caused a target words’ misidentification, triggering post-lexical strategies of checking. The second experiment investigated whether children extracted letter-position information independently from letter-identity information from the parafovea as adults do. Results showed that although children had longer reading times overall than adults, both adults and children pre-processed orthographic information from the parafovea and encoded letter-position information using a spatial coding mechanism. Finally, the third experiment examined whether children’s reading ability influenced letter-position encoding during lexical-processing in reading. Adults, skilled and less-skilled child readers read sentences with words containing two letters-transposed (positions 1&2, 1&3 and 2&3). Results showed that words with transposed-letters in position 13 caused the most disruption to reading, while words with transposed-letters in position 23 caused the least disruption to reading in both adults and skilled child readers. Less skilled child readers showed that although they showed disruption when identifying transposed-letters nonwords, the cost did not vary systematically depending on the letter-position. This suggests that less skilled child readers with fewer, high-quality lexical representations were activating phonological codes for word identification via the fine-grained route. In contrast, both adults and skilled child readers with more, high quality lexical representations were activating orthographic codes for word identification via the coarse-grained route.
Pagan Camacho, Ascension
ff2ad091-3c6d-421c-a6c1-9e9c8122952e
Pagan Camacho, Ascension
ff2ad091-3c6d-421c-a6c1-9e9c8122952e
Liversedge, Simon
3ebda3f3-d930-4f89-85d5-5654d8fe7dee

Pagan Camacho, Ascension (2015) The role of positional information during reading in children and adults. University of Southampton, School of Psychology, Doctoral Thesis, 216pp.

Record type: Thesis (Doctoral)

Abstract

Despite a large body of evidence investigating how letter-position information is encoded during lexical-processing during both isolated-word and reading paradigms, it is still not clear whether the mechanism to encode letter-position information is modulated by age and/or reading ability. The aim of the present research was to investigate developmental changes in letter-position encoding during reading. The first experiment investigated the influence of letter-position encoding on the time course of lexical and post-lexical processing during reading. It examined whether the prior exposure of a word’s transposed-letter neighbour (TLN) earlier in the same sentence interfered with that word identification in skilled-adult-readers. Results showed that in skilled-readers, TLNs caused a target words’ misidentification, triggering post-lexical strategies of checking. The second experiment investigated whether children extracted letter-position information independently from letter-identity information from the parafovea as adults do. Results showed that although children had longer reading times overall than adults, both adults and children pre-processed orthographic information from the parafovea and encoded letter-position information using a spatial coding mechanism. Finally, the third experiment examined whether children’s reading ability influenced letter-position encoding during lexical-processing in reading. Adults, skilled and less-skilled child readers read sentences with words containing two letters-transposed (positions 1&2, 1&3 and 2&3). Results showed that words with transposed-letters in position 13 caused the most disruption to reading, while words with transposed-letters in position 23 caused the least disruption to reading in both adults and skilled child readers. Less skilled child readers showed that although they showed disruption when identifying transposed-letters nonwords, the cost did not vary systematically depending on the letter-position. This suggests that less skilled child readers with fewer, high-quality lexical representations were activating phonological codes for word identification via the fine-grained route. In contrast, both adults and skilled child readers with more, high quality lexical representations were activating orthographic codes for word identification via the coarse-grained route.

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Published date: December 2015
Organisations: University of Southampton, Psychology

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Local EPrints ID: 389710
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/389710
PURE UUID: 8506e422-4f7a-4fbc-9768-4d1d7c41a45f

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Date deposited: 15 Mar 2016 11:30
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 23:08

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Contributors

Author: Ascension Pagan Camacho
Thesis advisor: Simon Liversedge

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