Katz Leonard, Brancazio Larry, Irwin Julia, Katz Stephen, Magnuson James, Whalen D H
Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, Mansfield, CT, USA.
Read Writ. 2012 Jul 1;25(6):1259-1282. doi: 10.1007/s11145-011-9316-9. Epub 2011 May 29.
The lexical decision (LD) and naming (NAM) tasks are ubiquitous paradigms that employ printed word identification. They are major tools for investigating how factors like morphology, semantic information, lexical neighborhood and others affect identification. Although use of the tasks is widespread, there has been little research into how performance in LD or NAM relates to reading ability, a deficiency that limits the translation of research with these tasks to the understanding of individual differences in reading. The present research was designed to provide a link from LD and NAM to the specific variables that characterize reading ability (e.g., decoding, sight word recognition, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension) as well as to important reading-related abilities (phonological awareness and rapid naming). We studied 99 adults with a wide range of reading abilities. LD and NAM strongly predicted individual differences in word identification, less strongly predicted vocabulary size and did not predict comprehension. Fluency was predicted but with differences that depended on the way fluency was defined. Finally, although the tasks did not predict individual differences in rapid naming or phonological awareness, the failures nevertheless assisted in understanding the cognitive mechanisms behind these reading-related abilities. The results demonstrate that LD and NAM are important tools for the study of individual differences in reading.
词汇判断（LD）任务和命名（NAM）任务是采用印刷文字识别的普遍范式。它们是研究形态学、语义信息、词汇邻域等因素如何影响识别的主要工具。尽管这些任务的使用很广泛，但关于LD或NAM任务的表现与阅读能力之间的关系却鲜有研究，这一缺陷限制了利用这些任务进行的研究在理解阅读个体差异方面的应用。本研究旨在建立从LD和NAM到表征阅读能力的特定变量（如解码、视觉词识别、流畅性、词汇和理解）以及重要的阅读相关能力（语音意识和快速命名）之间的联系。我们研究了99名阅读能力范围广泛的成年人。LD和NAM强烈预测了单词识别中的个体差异，对词汇量的预测较弱，对阅读理解则没有预测作用。流畅性虽被预测，但因流畅性定义方式的不同而存在差异。最后，尽管这些任务没有预测快速命名或语音意识方面的个体差异，但这些未能预测的情况仍有助于理解这些阅读相关能力背后的认知机制。结果表明，LD和NAM是研究阅读个体差异的重要工具。
