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Reading inflectionally incogruent texts: The automatic and strategic processes in language performance

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Abstract

Subjects were asked to read out loud at the fastest possible speed texts containing incorrectly inflected verbs exactly as the texts were printed. A control condition (errorfree texts) and two error conditions were used, one with half of the verbs (50%) containing errors, and the other with all the verbs (100%) containing error. Compared with reading correct texts, reading in the 50% condition was slower and more frequently impeded by different kinds of perturbations. This lowered performance was considered to have resulted from interference produced by covert involuntary activation of prior linguistic associations between the contexts and the appropriate verb forms. Performance in the 100% condition improved over the 50% condition. The improvement suggests that a strategic process had been induced to deal with the task demands. The main theoretical point is that complex mental processes such as language performance are automatic, and yet not rigid, unlike what the classic view of automaticity would predict.

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  1. Department of Psychology, Georgia Southern University, Landrum Box 8041, 30460-8041, Statesboro, Georgia

    Jerwen Jou

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  1. Jerwen Jou
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Jou, J. Reading inflectionally incogruent texts: The automatic and strategic processes in language performance. J Psycholinguist Res 21, 365–382 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01067921

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