Does consonant–vowel skeletal structure play a role early in lexical processing? Evidence from masked priming

Abstract

Is the specific consonant-vowel (CV) letter combination of a word a basic source of information for lexical access in the early stages of processing? We designed two masked priming lexical decision experiments to respond to this question by directly examining the role of CV skeletal structure in writtenword recognition. To that aim, each target word was preceded by a one-letter different nonword prime that kept the same CV skeletal structure or not. We also included an identity prime as a control. Results showed faster word identification times in the CV congruent condition than in the CV incongruent condition when a consonant was replaced from the target (paesaje-PAISAJE < parsaje-PAISAJE), but not when it was a vowel (alusno-ALUMNO = alueno-ALUMNO). This dissociation poses problems for those accounts based on an early activation of the CV skeletal structure during lexical processing. Instead, this pattern of data favors the view that it is the word's consonant skeleton rather than the CV skeletal structure that is the key element in the early phases of word processing. We discuss the theoretical and methodological implications of these findings.

The impact of consonant–vowel transpositions on masked priming effects in Italian and English

“…It is likely, therefore, that the different results may be attributable to different processes involved in the different experimental paradigms. The overall conclusion, however, seems to be that although the consonant–vowel structure of the letter string being processed is undoubtedly represented at some level, the present data provide no evidence for the idea that that structure is represented at the level of the orthographic code (see also Perea et al, 2018).…”

“…What’s also worth noting, however, is that the consonant–vowel distinction is not an unimportant one in word recognition, as both the results of Chetail and colleagues (Chetail et al, 2014; Chetail et al, 2018) and those of Perea et al (2018), just to mention the most recent ones, demonstrate, although in apparently contrasting directions. That is, the results in the former papers suggest that the important units are vowels, whereas the results in the latter paper suggest what is crucial is the consonant grid.…”

“…A second way of trying to establish the importance of the letter’s nature in the orthographic code can be found in experiments investigating the consonant-vowel structure of the prime and target. For example, in a lexical decision task in Spanish, Perea, Marcet, and Acha (2018) contrasted masked SL primes preserving the consonant–vowel (CV) structure of the target word (e.g., alusno-ALUMNO), masked SL primes not preserving the consonant-vowel structure (e.g., alueno-ALUMNO) and masked identity primes (e.g., alumno-ALUMNO). Expectedly, Perea et al found a cost for both types of SL primes compared with the identity prime condition, however, the nature of the letter being replaced mattered, to at least some degree.…”

The Deployment of Young Readers´ Visual Attention across Orthographic Strings: The Influence of Stems and Suffixes

“…These restrictions were implemented to closely control the number of times the target letters appeared in each of the possible target positions across all trials (not only those in which they were presented as targets). Moreover, due to debate as to whether vowels are processed differently than consonants (e.g., Carreiras, Gillon-Dowens, Vergara, & Perea, 2009;Duñabeitia & Carreiras, 2011;Perea, Marcet, & Acha, 2017) morphologically simple and complex items in target-present and absent trials were matched on the mean number of overall (ps > .54) and target (ps > .27) vowels per pseudoword 2 .…”

Early Sensitivity to Morphology in Beginning Readers of Arabic

“…Regarding written language processing, Berent and Perfetti (1995) argued that in adults, phonological conversion occurs separately for vowels and consonants, with consonants being transcoded in a first cycle and faster than vowels. Although further studies questioned whether the distinction was general, or specific to English orthography, recent studies suggest that the consonant skeleton may play an early role in access to phonology ( Duñabeitia and Carreiras, 2011 ; Perea et al, 2018 ), and that the organization of consonant and vowel letters determines perceptual units of print ( Chetail and Content, 2012 , 2014 , 2017 ; Chetail et al, 2014 , 2018 ).…”