Phonological effects in handwriting production: Evidence from the implicit priming paradigm.

Abstract

In the present article, we report 3 experiments using the odd-man-out variant of the implicit priming paradigm, aimed at determining the role played by phonological information during the handwriting process. Participants were asked to write a small set of words learned in response to prompts. Within each block, response words could share initial segments (constant homogeneous) or not (heterogeneous). Also, 2 variable homogeneous blocks were created by including a response word that did not share orthographic onset with the other response (odd-man-out). This odd-man-out could be phonologically related to the targets or not. Experiment 1 showed a preparation effect in the constant homogeneous condition, which disappeared (spoil effect) in the variable condition not phonologically related. However, no spoil effect was found when the odd-man-out shared the phonological initial segment with the targets. In Experiment 2, we obtained a spoil effect in the variable phonologically related condition, but it was significantly smaller than in the variable not phonologically related condition. The effects observed in Experiment 2 vanished in Experiment 3 under articulatory suppression, suggesting that they originated at a sublexical level. These findings suggest that phonological sublexical information is used during handwriting and provide evidence that the implicit priming paradigm (and the odd-man-out version of this) is a suitable tool for handwriting production research.

Phonology contributes to writing: evidence from a masked priming task

“…Hence, implicit priming exclusively depended on whether word-initial graphemes were shared, but word-initial phonemic overlap was not sufficient to generate priming. These results directly contradict those reported by Afonso and Álvarez (2011), and it is of yet unclear why this is the case. Shen et al (2013) took care, however, not to interpret their findings as evidence against the involvement of phonological codes in handwritten word production.…”

“…The basic finding, replicated in numerous studies, is that phonological word-initial overlap leads to a facilitation effect (Meyer, 1990(Meyer, , 1991 which is attributed to partial phonological planning possible in the homogeneous but not in the heterogeneous context. Afonso and Álvarez (2011) modified this technique to require written rather than spoken responses, and reported a similar facilitation effect with Spanish participants when responses overlapped in their word-initial properties (e.g. baladabaraja-banana-basura).…”

“…Two recent articles (Afonso & Álvarez, 2011;Shen, Damian, & Stadthagen-Gonzalez, 2013) reported experiments in which the popular "implicit priming" technique from the spoken literature was adopted to handwriting. In this task, participants memorise, prior to an experimental block, a small set of highly associated word pairs such as fruit-melon, iron-metal, and grassmeadow.…”

Effects of grapheme-to-phoneme probability on writing durations

“…Recent studies have shown that sublexical information mediates several types of writing tasks (Afonso & Álvarez, 2011;Bonin, Peereman, & Fayol, 2001;Delattre, Bonin, & Barry, 2006;Qu, Damian, Zhang, & Zhu, 2011), and theoretical models have been proposed to describe the relative involvement of the lexical and the sublexical route during spelling to dictation (Tainturier & Rapp, 2001; see also Folk & Rapp, 2004;Folk, Rapp, & Goldrick, 2002;Rapp, Epstein, & Tainturier, 2002) and/or written picture naming (Bonin et al, 2001;Roux & Bonin, 2012). However, the involvement of sublexical correspondences during copying has been investigated less than in other writing tasks.…”

Reading and Writing Achievement Tests for Assessing Orthographical and Phonological Impairments of Japanese Children with Developmental Disorders

“…Over the past decade, a growing body of research has shown that reading and writing involve orthographic processing and phonological processing both in alphabetical and in nonalphabetical languages (Afonso and Alvarez 2011;Kandel et al 2009;Mousikou et al 2010;Qu et al 2011). Moreover, a longitudinal developmental study showed that both orthographical and phonological skills accounted for independent variance in later orthographic skills (Sprenger-Charolles et al 2003).…”