Word length effect in early reading and in developmental dyslexia

Zoccolotti, Pierluigi; Luca, Maria De; Pace, Enrico Di; Gasperini, Filippo; Judica, Anna; Spinelli, Donatella

doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2004.10.010

Cited by 206 publications

(220 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Words with high values in the PCA-derived form factor are longer and have fewer neighbors. The effect on oral reading latencies of word length measured in letters (Balota et al, 2004;Weekes, 1997;Ziegler et al, 2001;Zoccolotti et al, 2005), in which longer words elicit longer naming latencies, is conventionally argued to reflect the serial phonological encoding of graphemes (Weekes, 1997). Our observation of a curvilinear length effect replicates, to some extent, previous findings in other languages (Ferrand et al, 2010;New et al, 2006).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

“…The effect on oral reading latencies of word length measured in letters has been routinely observed in word naming in transparent orthography languages: in German (Ziegler, Perry, Jacobs, & Braun, 2001), in Italian (Barca et al, 2002;Burani et al, 2007;De Luca, Barca, Burani, & Zoccolotti, 2008;Zoccolotti et al, 2005), and in Spanish (Cuetos & Barbón, 2006). Recent studies have indicated that syllable length also affects performance in visual word recognition (New, Ferrand, Pallier, & Brysbaert, 2006; see also Butler & Hains, 1979) and in word naming (Jared & Seidenberg, 1990;Yap & Balota, 2009;see also Ferrand, 2000).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Lexical and semantic age-of-acquisition effects on word naming in Spanish

2012

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We report a study of the factors that affect reading in Spanish, a language with a transparent orthography. Our focus was on the influence of lexical semantic knowledge in phonological coding. This effect would be predicted to be minimal in Spanish, according to some accounts of semantic effects in reading. We asked 25 healthy adults to name 2,764 mono-and multisyllabic words. As is typical for psycholinguistics, variables capturing critical word attributes were highly intercorrelated. Therefore, we used principal components analysis (PCA) to derive orthogonalized predictors from raw variables. The PCA distinguished components relating to (1) word frequency, age of acquisition (AoA), and familiarity; (2) word AoA, imageability, and familiarity; (3) word length and orthographic neighborhood size; and (4) bigram type and token frequency. Linear mixed-effects analyses indicated significant effects on reading due to each PCA component. Our observations confirm that oral reading in Spanish proceeds through spelling-sound mappings involving lexical and sublexical units. Importantly, our observations distinguish between the effect of lexical frequency (the impact of the component relating to frequency, AoA, and familiarity) and the effect of semantic knowledge (the impact of the component relating to AoA, imageability, and familiarity). Semantic knowledge influences word naming even when all the words being read have regular spellingsound mappings.Keywords Spanish . Reading . Naming . Age of acquisition . Orthographic transparency . Curvilinear A general account of the cognitive reading system must describe and explain the effects of word attributes on reading in different orthographies. Orthographies may differ in a range of ways, but there has been a long-standing interest in how reading varies in relation to differences in orthographic transparency (e.g., Frost, Katz, & Bentin, 1987). The Spanish orthography is transparent because orthography-phonology mappings are completely rule governed across the language (Cuetos & Barbón, 2006). In comparison, the English orthography is quasi-regular, having both rule-governed and exceptional orthography-phonology mappings (Plaut, McClelland, Seidenberg, & Patterson, 1996). Current evidence suggests that reading is affected by a mix of factors that appears to be similar in kind, whether more opaque or more transparent orthographies are examined. Our aim was to bring evidence to bear on whether reading effects would be similar, also, in the specific components. We were especially concerned with the impact on reading of the key lexical factors-frequency, age of acquisition (AoA), and imageability (seen to affect reading in English; e.g., Balota, Cortese, Sergent-Marshall, Spieler, & Yap, 2004;Cortese & Khanna, 2007)-and with the question of whether previous observations of the AoA effect on reading in Spanish (Cuetos & Barbón, 2006) can be taken to reveal the influence of semantics on word naming in a transparent orthography. (Balota et al., 2004;Cortese & Khanna, 2007)...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 80%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lexical and semantic age-of-acquisition effects on word naming in Spanish

2012

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“…In transparent orthographies the main characteristic of readers with RD is slow reading (e.g., de Jong & van der Leij, 2003;Landerl & Wimmer, 2008;Landerl, Wimmer, & Frith, 1997;Zoccolotti et al, 2005) while reading accuracy has been shown to be an easy skill to acquire (Aro & Wimmer, 2003;Seymour, Aro, & Erskine, 2003). Therefore, unlike previous studies on RD stability in English, we focus on reading fluency.…”

Section: Late-emerging and Resolving Dyslexia: A Follow-up Study Frommentioning

confidence: 99%

Late-Emerging and Resolving Dyslexia: A Follow-Up Study from Age 3 to 14

Torppa

Eklund

Bergen

et al. 2015

J Abnorm Child Psychol

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“…For example, for first and second graders, as well as children with dyslexia, length effects have been observed for words of two to five letters (e.g., Marinus & de Jong, 2010b;Ziegler, Perry, Ma-Wyatt, Ladner, & Schulte-Körne, 2003;Zoccolotti et al, 2005). For sixth through eighth graders, length affected naming latencies for words ranging from three to eight letters ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The effects of neighbourhood size are of interest for two reasons. First, according to PDP models, neighbourhood size is a possible alternative explanation for length effects, yet previous studies on length effects in children have not controlled for neighbourhood size (e.g., Martens & de Jong, 2006;Spinelli et al, 2005;Zoccolotti et al, 2005). In addition, in a large data set of adult lexical decisions, it has been shown that controlling for neighbourhood size is important when studying length effects.…”

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confidence: 99%

Lexical Decision in Children: Sublexical Processing or Lexical Search?

Boer

Jong

Meeteren

2012

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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General rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden.The publisher does not give any warranty express or implied or make any representation that the contents will be complete or accurate or up to date. The accuracy of any instructions, formulae, and drug doses should be independently verified with primary sources. The publisher shall not be liable for any loss, actions, claims, proceedings, demand, or costs or damages whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with or arising out of the use of this material.Lexical decision in children: Sublexical processing or lexical search? Length effects in the lexical decision latencies of children might indicate that children rely on sublexical processing and essentially approach the task as a naming task. We examined this possibility by means of the effects of neighbourhood size and articulatory suppression on lexical decision performance. Sixty-six beginning and 62 advanced readers performed a lexical decision task in a standard, articulatory suppression, or tapping condition. We found length effects on words and nonwords in the children's lexical decisions. However, the effects of neighbourhood size were similar to those reported for adult lexical decisions, rather than the effects previously found in children's naming. In addition, no effect was found of articulatory suppression. Both findings suggest that, despite clear length effects, children do not adopt a naming task approach but, like adults, base lexical decisions mainly on a lexical search. These results pose a challenge for several computational models of reading.

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Word length effect in early reading and in developmental dyslexia

Cited by 206 publications

References 16 publications

Lexical and semantic age-of-acquisition effects on word naming in Spanish

Lexical and semantic age-of-acquisition effects on word naming in Spanish

Late-Emerging and Resolving Dyslexia: A Follow-Up Study from Age 3 to 14

Lexical Decision in Children: Sublexical Processing or Lexical Search?

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