The syllable frequency effect in visual recognition of French words: a study in skilled and beginning readers

Abstract

The present study addressed the issue of syllable activation during visual recognition of French words. In addition, it was investigated whether word orthographic information underlies syllable effects. To do so, words were selected according to the frequency of their first syllable (high versus low) and the frequency of the orthographic correspondence of this syllable (high versus low). For example, the high-frequency syllable /ã/ is frequently transcribed by the orthographic cluster an, but infrequently transcribed by han in French. A lexical decision task was performed by skilled readers (Experiment 1) and beginning readers in Grade 5 (Experiment 2). Results yielded an inhibitory effect of syllable frequency in both experiments. Moreover, the reliable interaction between syllable frequency and orthographic correspondence frequency indicated that the syllable frequency effect was influenced by orthographic characteristics of syllables. Finally, data showed that the interaction between phonological and orthographic variables was modified with reading experience. The results are discussed in current models of visual word recognition.

Electrophysiological markers of syllable frequency during written word recognition in French

“…This supports an orthographic locus of syllabic effects. The relevant syllable-like units processed within written polysyllabic words predominantly correspond to letter clusters rather than to phonological syllables (see Chetail & Mathey, 2009;Conrad et al, 2010; but see Conrad et al, 2007). Consistently, Stenneken, Conrad, Goldenberg, and Jacobs (2003) reported the case of a dyslexic adult with severe phonological impairments who exhibited a reliable syllable frequency effect.…”

“…An inhibitory effect was found, high syllable-frequency (HSF) words being processed more slowly than low syllable-frequency (LSF) words. Since that first report, the effect has been replicated in several languages: Spanish (Alvarez, Carreiras, & Taft, 2001;Conrad, Carreiras, & Jacobs, 2008;Conrad, Carreiras, Tamm, & Jacobs, 2009), French (Chetail & Mathey, 2009;Conrad, Grainger, & Jacobs, 2007; see also Mathey & Zagar, 2002) and German Hutzler, Conrad, & Jacobs, 2005;Stenneken, Conrad, & Jacobs, 2007). At a theoretical level, the effect has been accounted for in terms of competition among candidate words sharing the initial syllable (Carreiras et al, 1993).…”

InfoSyll: A Syllabary Providing Statistical Information on Phonological and Orthographic Syllables

“…In the lexical decision task, Carreiras et al (1993) observed that skilled readers in Spanish decided more slowly that words with a high-frequency first syllable were real words than words with a low-frequency first syllable. This inhibitory effect of syllable frequency has been widely replicated in follow-up studies in Spanish (e.g., Alvarez et al 2000Alvarez et al , 2001Conrad et al 2008;Perea and Carreiras 1998), French (e.g., Chetail and Mathey 2009b;Conrad et al 2007;Mathey and Zagar 2002;Mathey et al 2006) and German (e.g., Stenneken et al 2007;Conrad and Jacobs 2004). In reading aloud also, syllable frequency effects have been reported in the naming task, the effects being either facilitative (e.g., Macizo and Van Petten 2007, in English;Perea and Carreiras 1998, in Spanish) or inhibitory (e.g., Carreiras et al 1993, in Spanish;Conrad et al 2006, in German).…”

“…When the effects of syllable frequency were separately examined according to the syllable features in French , data yielded an inhibitory effect of phonological syllabic neighbourhood (orthographic syllabic neighbourhood held constant) and no effect of orthographic syllabic neighbourhood (phonological syllabic neighbourhood held constant). Furthermore, when the phonological syllabic neighbourhood and the orthographic syllabic neighbourhood were jointly manipulated, the inhibitory effect of syllable frequency was obtained only for low-frequency orthographic syllables in adults, while the reverse pattern was found in fifth graders in French (Chetail and Mathey 2009b). These data suggest that the orthographic transcriptions of syllables is an important variable and that orthographic information carried by syllables should be taken into account when studying syllable effects, at least in French.…”

“…The syllable frequency effect was first examined in contrasting words with high-frequency syllables and words with low-frequency syllables (Carreiras et al 1993). Since this seminal study, more complex issues have emerged, with subtle manipulations of syllabic variables such as the phonological feature of syllables (e.g., Alvarez et al 2004), the way to compute syllable frequency (e.g., Conrad et al 2007) or the frequency of syllable spelling (e.g., Chetail and Mathey 2009b). In addition, current models of visual word recognition incorporate syllable units (Conrad et al 2009;Mathey et al 2006) and even syllable frequency resting levels (Mathey et al 2006), so it is important to provide adequate tools to test such model predictions in the French language.…”