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Neurophysiological correlates of opaque and transparent word-processing in English speakers
Poster Session D, Saturday, September 13, 5:00 - 6:30 pm, Field House
This poster is part of the Sandbox Series.
Eleonora Rossi1, Anna Julia Demasi1, Hailey Vasquez1; 1University of Florida
Languages differ in their orthographic depth and in turn this might shape how readers access and process words (Katz and Feldman, 1983). For example, languages like Spanish, for which the sounds composing words are represented by unique graphemes, are considered as having a shallow orthographic system. Differently, languages with multiple pronunciations per grapheme, like English, are considered as having a deep orthographic system (Seymour, Aro, & Erskine, 2003). It is thought that deep, or opaque orthographies are based mostly on lexical processing, and thus can feature holistic coding, that is words are read through a holistic route, rather than via individual letters. Differently, shallow or transparent orthographies based mostly on individual phoneme processing depend on smaller processing windows (Grainger & Ziegler, 2011). Aims: This study aims to measure and compare he electrophysiological signatures of transparent (i.e., candy, level) and opaque (i.e., knight, yacht) English words using Event related Potentials (ERPs) in native speakers of English and compare them to processing non-words (e.g., gibbs, kint, freth. Two main predictions are cast: 1. It is predicted that Non-Words will elicit a greater N400 compared to Real Words (transparent and opaque combined) (Kutas & Federmeier, 2011). 2. In line with previous findings looking at orthographic transparency (Simon et al, 2006), we expect to observe a larger frontal negativity for opaque words around 320 milliseconds (N320) signaling increased cognitive workload involved in grapheme-phoneme conversion and processing (Bentin et al., (1999). Method: 23 English monolingual speakers (mean age: 22.1) were tested. Participants completed an EEG based lexical decision task composed of 50 English Non-Words, and 50 Real English words subdivided into transparent words (n=25), and opaque words (n=25). Results: Non-Words elicited a larger N400 relative to Real Words. Regarding the processing of opaque and transparent words, there was an emerging frontal negativity for opaque words compared to transparent words around 320 milliseconds, signaling increased cognitive workload involved in grapheme-phoneme conversion and processing (Bentin et al., (1999), and Left frontal activation has been previously linked to conversion of orthography to phonology (Simone et al., 2006). Conclusions: These EEG results replicate the well-known effect of an enhanced N400 for non-words relative to words (Kutas & Federmeier, 2011). In addition, the observed larger N320 for opaque words is in line with previously reported data generated in similar orthographic transparency studies (Simone et al., 2006). While the available literature varies in findings, this component may illustrate an increased cognitive workload involved in grapheme-phoneme conversion and processing (Bentin et al., (1999).
Topic Areas: Reading, Meaning: Lexical Semantics