Decoding letter position in word reading

Cortex ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 74-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ori Ossmy ◽  
Michal Ben-Shachar ◽  
Roy Mukamel
Keyword(s):  
Word Reading ◽  
Letter Position

The Role of the Right Posterior Parietal Cortex in Letter Migration between Words

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 377-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dario Cazzoli ◽  
René M. Müri ◽  
Christopher Kennard ◽  
Clive R. Rosenthal
Keyword(s):  
Parietal Cortex ◽  
Posterior Parietal Cortex ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
Letter Position ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Neural Basis ◽  
Specific Effects ◽  
Letter Position Coding ◽  
Posterior Parietal ◽  
The Right

When briefly presented with pairs of words, skilled readers can sometimes report words with migrated letters (e.g., they report hunt when presented with the words hint and hurt). This and other letter migration phenomena have been often used to investigate factors that influence reading such as letter position coding. However, the neural basis of letter migration is poorly understood. Previous evidence has implicated the right posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in processing visuospatial attributes and lexical properties during word reading. The aim of this study was to assess this putative role by combining an inhibitory TMS protocol with a letter migration paradigm, which was designed to examine the contributions of visuospatial attributes and lexical factors. Temporary interference with the right PPC led to three specific effects on letter migration. First, the number of letter migrations was significantly increased only in the group with active stimulation (vs. a sham stimulation group or a control group without stimulation), and there was no significant effect on other error types. Second, this effect occurred only when letter migration could result in a meaningful word (migration vs. control context). Third, the effect of active stimulation on the number of letter migrations was lateralized to target words presented on the left. Our study thus demonstrates that the right PPC plays a specific and causal role in the phenomenon of letter migration. The nature of this role cannot be explained solely in terms of visuospatial attention, rather it involves an interplay between visuospatial attentional and word reading-specific factors.

scholarly journals Orthographic processing: A ‘mid-level’ vision of reading: The 44th Sir Frederic Bartlett Lecture

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Grainger
Keyword(s):  
Word Reading ◽  
Letter Position ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Orthographic Processing ◽  
Linguistic Processing ◽  
Position Information ◽  
Skilled Readers ◽  
Sentence Reading ◽  
Orthographic Similarity ◽  
Single Word Reading

I will describe how orthographic processing acts as a central interface between visual and linguistic processing during reading, and as such can be considered to be the ‘mid-level vision’ of reading research. In order to make this case, I first summarize the evidence in favour of letter-based word recognition before examining work investigating how orthographic similarities among words influence single word reading. I describe how evidence gradually accumulated against traditional measures of orthographic similarity and the associated theories of orthographic processing, forcing a reconsideration of how letter-position information is represented by skilled readers. Then, I present the theoretical framework that was developed to explain these findings, with a focus on the distinction between location-specific and location-invariant orthographic representations. Finally, I describe work extending this theoretical framework in two main directions: first, to the realm of reading development, with the aim to specify the key changes in the processing of letters and letter strings that accompany successful learning to read, and second, to the realm of sentence reading, in order to specify how orthographic information can be processed across several words in parallel, and how skilled readers keep track of which letters belong to which words.

Representation of letter position in single-word reading: Evidence from acquired dyslexia

2013 ◽  
Vol 30 (6) ◽  
pp. 396-428 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael McCloskey ◽  
Simon Fischer-Baum ◽  
Teresa Schubert
Keyword(s):  
Word Reading ◽  
Letter Position ◽  
Single Word ◽  
Acquired Dyslexia ◽  
Single Word Reading

scholarly journals Cortical Effects of Shifting Letter Position in Letter Strings of Varying Length

2003 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 731-746 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piers Cornelissen ◽  
Antti Tarkiainen ◽  
Päivi Helenius ◽  
Riitta Salmelin
Keyword(s):  
Word Length ◽  
Right Hemisphere ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Letter Position ◽  
Opposite Pattern ◽  
Spatio Temporal ◽  
Single Word Reading ◽  
The Right

Neuroimaging and lesion studies suggest that occipitotemporal brain areas play a necessary role in recognizing a wide variety of objects, be they faces, letters, numbers, or household items. However, many questions remain regarding the details of exactly what kinds of information are processed by the occipito-temporal cortex. Here, we address this question with respect to reading. Ten healthy adult subjects performed a single word reading task. We used whole-head magnetoencephalography to measure the spatio-temporal dynamics of brain responses, and investigated their sensitivity to: (1) lexicality (defined here as the difference between words and consonant strings), (2) word length, and (3) variation in letter position. Analysis revealed that midline occipital activity around 100 msec, consistent with low-level visual feature analysis, was insensitive to lexicality and variation in letter position, but was slightly affected by string length. Bilateral occipito-temporal activations around 150 msec were insensitive to lexicality and reacted to word length only in the timing (and not strength) of activation. However, vertical shifts in letter position revealed a hemispheric imbalance: The right hemisphere activation increased with the shifts, whereas the opposite pattern was evident in the left hemisphere. The results are discussed in the light of Caramazza and Hillis's (1990) model of early reading.

Morphological Awareness Skills of Second- and Third-Grade Students With and Without Speech Sound Disorders

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 603-616
Author(s):  
Kenn Apel ◽  
Victoria S. Henbest
Keyword(s):  
Word Reading ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Morphological Awareness ◽  
Literacy Skills ◽  
Receptive Vocabulary ◽  
Real Word ◽  
Speech Sound Disorders ◽  
Word Level ◽  
Third Grade Students ◽  
Pseudoword Reading

Purpose Morphological awareness is the ability to consciously manipulate the smallest units of meaning in language. Morphological awareness contributes to success with literacy skills for children with typical language and those with language impairment. However, little research has focused on the morphological awareness skills of children with speech sound disorders (SSD), who may be at risk for literacy impairments. No researcher has examined the morphological awareness skills of children with SSD and compared their skills to children with typical speech using tasks representing a comprehensive definition of morphological awareness, which was the main purpose of this study. Method Thirty second- and third-grade students with SSD and 30 with typical speech skills, matched on age and receptive vocabulary, completed four morphological awareness tasks and measures of receptive vocabulary, real-word reading, pseudoword reading, and word-level spelling. Results Results indicated there was no difference between the morphological awareness skills of students with and without SSD. Although morphological awareness was moderately to strongly related to the students' literacy skills, performance on the morphological awareness tasks contributed little to no additional variance to the children's real-word reading and spelling skills beyond what was accounted for by pseudoword reading. Conclusions Findings suggest that early elementary-age students with SSD may not present with concomitant morphological awareness difficulties and that the morphological awareness skills of these students may not play a unique role in their word-level literacy skills. Limitations and suggestions for future research on the morphological awareness skills of children with SSD are discussed.

The Relation Between Linguistic Awareness Skills and Spelling in Adults: A Comparison Among Scoring Procedures

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 1240-1253
Author(s):  
Victoria S. Henbest ◽  
Lisa Fitton ◽  
Krystal L. Werfel ◽  
Kenn Apel
Keyword(s):  
Phonemic Awareness ◽  
Concurrent Validity ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
Continuous Measure ◽  
Scoring Methods ◽  
Syntactic Awareness ◽  
Scoring Method ◽  
Spelling Performance ◽  
Linguistic Awareness ◽  
Average Readers

Purpose Spelling is a skill that relies on an individual's linguistic awareness, the ability to overtly manipulate language. The ability to accurately spell is important for academic and career success into adulthood. The spelling skills of adults have received some attention in the literature, but there is limited information regarding which approach for analyzing adults' spelling is optimal for guiding instruction or intervention for those who struggle. Thus, we aimed to examine the concurrent validity of four different scoring methods for measuring adults' spellings (a dichotomous scoring method and three continuous methods) and to determine whether adults' linguistic awareness skills differentially predict spelling outcomes based on the scoring method employed. Method Sixty undergraduate college students who were determined to be average readers as measured by a word reading and contextual word reading task were administered a spelling task as well as morphological, orthographic, phonemic, and syntactic awareness tasks. Results All four scoring methods were highly correlated suggesting high concurrent validity among the measures. Two linguistic awareness skills, morphological awareness and syntactic awareness, predicted spelling performance on both the dichotomous and continuous scoring methods. Contrastively, phonemic awareness and orthographic awareness predicted spelling performance only when spelling was scored using a continuous measure error analysis. Conclusions The results of this study confirm that multiple linguistic awareness skills are important for spelling in adults who are average readers. The results also highlight the need for using continuous measures of spelling when planning intervention or instruction, particularly in the areas of orthographic and phonemic awareness.

Reading Longer Words: Insights Into Multisyllabic Word Reading

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay Heggie ◽  
Lesly Wade-Woolley
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Approach ◽  
Word Reading ◽  
Explicit Instruction ◽  
Working Memory Capacity ◽  
Reading Difficulties ◽  
Instructional Programs ◽  
Morphological Knowledge ◽  
Morphological Complexity ◽  
Reading Accuracy ◽  
Grade 3

Students with persistent reading difficulties are often especially challenged by multisyllabic words; they tend to have neither a systematic approach for reading these words nor the confidence to persevere (Archer, Gleason, & Vachon, 2003; Carlisle & Katz, 2006; Moats, 1998). This challenge is magnified by the fact that the vast majority of English words are multisyllabic and constitute an increasingly large proportion of the words in elementary school texts beginning as early as grade 3 (Hiebert, Martin, & Menon, 2005; Kerns et al., 2016). Multisyllabic words are more difficult to read simply because they are long, posing challenges for working memory capacity. In addition, syllable boundaries, word stress, vowel pronunciation ambiguities, less predictable grapheme-phoneme correspondences, and morphological complexity all contribute to long words' difficulty. Research suggests that explicit instruction in both syllabification and morphological knowledge improve poor readers' multisyllabic word reading accuracy; several examples of instructional programs involving one or both of these elements are provided.

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