The role of phonology in the activation of word meanings during reading: Evidence from proofreading and eye movements.

Abstract

Six experiments explored the role of phonology in the activation of word meanings when words were embedded in meaningful texts. Specifically, the studies examined whether participants detected the substitution of a homophone mate for a contextually appropriate homophone. The frequency of the incorrect homophone, the frequency of the correct homophone, and the predictability of the correct homophone were manipulated. Also, the impact of reading skill was examined. When correct homophones were not predictable and participants had a range of reading abilities, the evidence indicated that phonology plays a role in activating the meanings of low-frequency words only. When the performance of good and poor readers was examined separately, the evidence indicated that good readers primarily activate the meanings of words using the direct route, whereas poor readers primarily activate the meanings of words using the phonological route.

Spelling–sound consistency effects in disyllabic word naming

“…The V& b y frequency interaction contributed a significant unique arnount of variance in the prediction of errors in one of the studies. In conjunction with the results of Jared (1997;submitted), this suggests that consistency effects are no t iimited to low frequency words.…”

“…First, Treiman et al (1995) found that frequency-byconsistency interaction measures did not predict naming latencies or error rates in their analyses of two mega-studies. Second, Jared (1997) found that spelling sound consistency of the word body affected the naming latencies of high-frequency words when the frequencies of friends and enemies were carefully controlled in the same namrner as for low-frequency words that produced consistency effects. Third, Jared (submitted) replicated her earlier result, and again found that high-frequency words were af'fected by the spelling-sound consistency of their word-bodies.…”

“…1982), but these had not carefuily controlled the frequencies of the fnends and enernies of the target words. Jared (1997) wanted to determine whether consistency would affect high frequency words, and whether an interaction between frequency and consistency would appear, when both high and low frequency words had a low sumrned frequency of friends and a high summed frequency of enemies. SpeUingsound consistency affected naming latencies of high-frequency words.…”

“…These additional factors will increase the complexity of current theories and models of word recognition , A great d e d of research on rnonosyUabic printed word recognition has exarnined phonological processing, or the conversion of print to sound in the course of narning a word. Recent evidence indicates that this is an important process for activating word meanings, particularly for Iess Eamiliar words (Jared, Levy, & Rayner, 1999). If a word's phonological representation is a major contributor to activating its meaning, then the factors that influence phonological processing will play an important role in reading cornprehension.…”

Individual differences in the perceptual span during reading: Evidence from the moving window technique

“…Individual differences on a variety of cognitive tasks have been shown to relate to variability in eye movements during reading (e.g., Ashby, Rayner, & Clifton, 2005;Jared, Levy, & Rayner, 1999;Kuperman & Van Dyke, 2011). A key requirement for explaining the nature of individual differences during reading is to better understand how and why readers differ in their ability to extract visual information from the parafovea and to use this information to make processing more efficient.…”