Development of neural processes mediating rhyme judgments: Phonological and orthographic interactions

Abstract

Development of neural processes underlying integration of phonological and orthographic information were assessed by measuring event-related brain potentials (ERPs), judgment accuracies and reaction times (RTs) in 20 children (9-10 years) and 20 adults performing visual rhyme judgments. Half the trials were phonologically and orthographically congruent across the prime-target pairs (e.g., thrown-own, cake-own), and half were incongruent (e.g., gown-own, cone-own). For both children and adults, behavioral performance was most affected when different phonological representations had to be encoded from similar orthographic representations (e.g., gown-own), and the amplitudes of the N350 reflected effects of both rhyme and phonological/orthographic congruency. Latencies of the N350 were shorter over the left hemisphere only in adults, and phonological/orthographic incongruence produced greater delays in children's processing. Therefore, it appears that neural systems mediating rhyming judgments develop early; however, adults exhibit increased efficiency for left-hemisphere processing and are less affected by interference from incongruent phonological and orthographic codes.

ERP Nonword Rhyming Effects in Children and Adults

“…Recently, similar results have been reported in children and adolescents in both the visual and auditory modalities (Weber-Fox, Spencer, Cuadrado, & Smith, 2003;Coch, Grossi, Coffey-Corina, Holcomb, & Neville, 2002;Grossi, Coch, Coffey-Corina, Holcomb, & Neville, 2001;McPherson, Ackerman, Holcomb, & Dykman, 1998;Lovrich, Cheng, & Velting, 1996;Ackerman, Dykman, & Oglesby, 1994). In the visual modality, both the RE and the CNV were observed in 7-to 23-year-olds (Grossi et al, 2001).…”

Letters Rhyme: Electrophysiological Evidence From Children and Adults

“…In visual studies presenting prime-target pairs of words and comparing the ERP responses to rhyming and nonrhyming targets (e.g., rocks-fox versus rocks-blue), nonrhyming targets consistently elicit a larger negative-going ERP component (N450) than rhyming targets in adults (e.g., Coch, Hart, & Mitra, 2008;Grossi, Coch, Coffey-Corina, Holcomb, & Neville, 2001;Kramer & Donchin, 1987;Rugg, 1984;Weber-Fox, Spencer, Cuadrado, & Smith, 2003). Remarkably, a very similar ERP rhyming effect for real words has been reported in studies with typically developing children as young as age 7 (e.g., Ackerman, Dykman, & Oglesby, 1994;Grossi et al, 2001;Weber-Fox et al, 2003). In these studies, sound-based, phonological, rhyme processing is indexed by the differential responses to rhyming and nonrhyming target visual words, implying that mappings between orthography and phonology occurred.…”

Developmental changes in brain regions involved in phonological and orthographic processing during spoken language processing

“…The O+P-(e.g. PINT-MINT) condition has consistently been found to be more difficult than the O-P+ condition in the context of a rhyme decision task, demonstrated by both longer reaction times and higher error rates relative to other conditions in both children and adults (Kramer and Donchin 1987;McPherson, et al 1997;Polich, et al 1983;Rugg and Barrett 1987;Weber-Fox, et al 2003). One potential reason for this difference is that it is likely more difficult to appropriately reject a non-rhyme (i.e., make a correct "no" decision) than to appropriately accept a rhyme (i.e., make a correct "yes" decision) (Ratcliff 1985).…”