Automatic activation of phonology in silent reading is parallel: evidence from beginning and skilled readers.
The picture-word interference paradigm was used to shed new light on the debate concerning slow serial versus fast parallel activation of phonology in silent reading. Prereaders, beginning readers (Grades 1-4), and adults named pictures that had words printed on them. Words and pictures shared phonology either at the beginnings of words (e.g., DOLL-DOG) or at the ends of words (e.g., FOG-DOG). The results showed that phonological overlap between primes and targets facilitated picture naming. This facilitatory effect was present even in beginning readers. More important, from Grade 1 onward, end-related facilitation always was as strong as beginning-related facilitation. This result suggests that, from the beginning of reading, the implicit and automatic activation of phonological codes during silent reading is not serial but rather parallel.
Alario
F-Xavier
FX
Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, CNRS UMR 6146, Université de Provence, 13331 Marseille Cedex 3, France. francois-xavier.alario@univ-provence.fr
De Cara
Bruno
B
Ziegler
Johannes C
JC
D000124:Achievement; D000328:Adult; D001332:Automatism; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D001330:Electronic Data Processing; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D011578:Psycholinguistics / Q000379:methods; D011932:Reading; D013067:Speech Perception; D014706:Verbal Learning