Abstract
Research consistently indicates the importance of phonological processing in early reading development, yet the role of phonology in skilled reading is still not well understood. Two event-related potential (ERP) experiments investigated the nature and time course of phonological processing during skilled visual word recognition using a masked priming paradigm. Phonological syllable priming was examined by presenting prime-target pairs either with the same first syllable, or with one letter more or fewer. In this visually matched design, items like po## -PONY and pon### -PONDER appeared in the congruent condition. Conversely, pon# -PONY and po#### -PONDER appeared in the incongruent condition. In both experiments, the magnitude of the first negative peak (N1) was reduced in the phonologically congruent condition as compared to the incongruent condition. This syllable congruency effect is the first neurophysiological evidence for phonological syllable activation in the initial moments of visual word recognition. The early time course of this activation indicates that suprasegmental phonological processing is fundamental to skilled reading.
Article PDF
References
Ashby, J. (2006). Prosody in skilled silent reading: Evidence from eye movements. Journal of Research in Reading, 29, 318–333.
Ashby, J., & Martin, A. E. (2008). Prosodic phonological representations early in visual word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 34, 224–236.
Ashby, J., & Rayner, K. (2004). Representing syllable information during silent reading: Evidence from eye movements. Language & Cognitive Processes, 19, 391–426.
Ashby, J., Sanders, L. D., & Kingston, J. (2009). Skilled readers begin processing phonological features by 80 msec: Evidence from ERPs. Biological Psychology, 80, 84–94.
Bradley, L., & Bryant, P. D. (1983). Categorizing sounds and learning to read-a causal connection. Nature, 301, 419–421.
Carreiras, M., Alvarez, C. J., & de Vega, M. (1993). Syllable frequency and visual word recognition in Spanish. Journal of Memory & Language, 32, 766–780.
Carreiras, M., & Perea, M. (2002). Masked priming effects with syllabic neighbors in a lexical decision task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 28, 1228–1242.
Chen, J.-Y., Lin, W.-C., & Ferrand, L. (2003). Masked priming of the syllable in Mandarin Chinese speech production. Chinese Journal of Psychology, 45, 107–120.
Doctor, E. A., & Coltheart, M. (1980). Children’s use of phonological encoding when reading for meaning. Memory & Cognition, 8, 195–209.
Ferrand, L., Segui, J., & Humphreys, G. W. (1997). The syllable’s role in word naming. Memory & Cognition, 25, 458–470.
Forster, K. I., & Davis, C. (1984). Repetition priming and frequency attenuation in lexical access. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 10, 680–698.
Frost, R. (1998). Toward a strong phonological theory of visual word recognition: True issues and false trails. Psychological Bulletin, 12, 71–99.
Grainger, J., Kiyonaga, K., & Holcomb, P. J. (2006). The time course of orthographic and phonological code activation. Psychological Science, 17, 1021–1026.
Hauk, O., Patterson, K., Woollams, A., Watling, L., Pulvermüller, F., & Rogers, T. T. (2006). [Q:] When would you prefer a SOSSAGE to a SAUSAGE ? [A:] At about 100 msec. ERP correlates of orthographic typicality and lexicality in written word recognition. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, 818–832.
Holcomb, P. J., & Grainger, J. (2007). Exploring the temporal dynamics of visual word recognition in the masked repetition priming paradigm using event-related potentials. Brain Research, 1180, 39–58.
Hutzler, F., Conrad, M., & Jacobs, A. M. (2005). Effects of syllable frequency in lexical decision and naming: An eye-movement study. Brain & Language, 92, 138–152.
Kinoshita, S., & Lupker, S. J. (2003). Masked priming: The state of the art. New York: Psychology Press.
Luck, S. J. (2005). An introduction to event-related potential technique. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Mangun, G. R., & Hillyard, S. A. (1995). Mechanisms and models of selective attention. In M. D. Rugg & M. G. H. Coles (Eds.), Electrophysiology of mind: Event-related brain potentials and cognition (pp. 40–85). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Merriam-Webster (1995). Merriam-Webster’s collegiate dictionary (10th ed.). Springfield, MA: Author.
Morris, R. D., Stuebing, K. K., Fletcher, J. M., Shaywitz, S. E., Lyon, G. R., Shankweiler, D. P., et al. (1998). Subtypes of reading disability: Variability around a phonological core. Journal of Educational Psychology, 90, 347–373.
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (2000). Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-4754). Washington, DC: National Institutes of Health.
Newman, R. L., & Connolly, J. F. (2004). Determining the role of phonology in silent reading using event-related brain potentials. Cognitive Brain Research, 21, 94–105.
Norris, D., & Kinoshita, S. (2008). Perception as evidence accumulation and Bayesian inference: Insights from masked priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 137, 434–455.
Penolazzi, B., Hauk, O., & Pulvermüller, F. (2007). Early semantic context integration and lexical access as revealed by event-related brain potentials. Biological Psychology, 74, 374–388.
Rastle, K., & Brysbaert, M. (2006). Masked phonological priming effects in English: Are they real? Do they matter? Cognitive Psychology, 53, 97–145.
Rayner, K., Foorman, B., Perfetti, C., Pesetsky, D., & Seidenberg, M. (2001). How psychological science informs the teaching of reading. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2, 31–73.
Rayner, K., & Pollatsek, A. (1989). The psychology of reading. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Sanders, L. D., & Neville, H. J. (2003). An ERP study of continuous speech processing I. Segmentation, semantics, and syntax in native speakers. Cognitive Brain Research, 15, 228–240.
Schiller, N. O. (2000). Single word production in English: The role of subsyllabic units during phonological encoding. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 26, 512–528.
Share, D. L. (1995). Phonological recoding and self-teaching: Sine qua non of reading acquisition. Cognition, 55, 151–218.
Shaywitz, S. E., & Shaywitz, B. A. (2005). Dyslexia (specific reading disability). Biological Psychiatry, 57, 1301–1309.
Van Orden, G. C., & Kloos, H. (2005). The question of phonology and reading. In M. J. Snowling & C. Hulmes (Eds.), The science of reading (pp. 61–78). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Wilson, M. D. (1988). The MRC psycholinguistic database: Machine readable dictionary, Version 2. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 20, 6–11.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
NIH Grant HD051700 supported this research.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ashby, J. Phonology is fundamental in skilled reading: Evidence from ERPs. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 17, 95–100 (2010). https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.1.95
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.1.95