Jevtović Mina, Antzaka Alexia, Martin Clara D
Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL), Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain.
University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), Leioa, Spain.
J Cogn. 2023 Jan 12;6(1):7. doi: 10.5334/joc.250. eCollection 2023.
When acquiring novel spoken words, English-speaking children generate preliminary orthographic representations even before seeing the words' spellings (Wegener et al., 2018). Interestingly, these are generated even when novel words' spellings are uncertain, at least in transparent languages like Spanish (Jevtović et al., 2022). Here we investigate whether this process depends on the orthographic rules of the language, and specifically, whether orthographic skeletons for words with uncertain spellings are generated even when the probability of generating an incorrect representation is high. Forty-six French adults first acquired novel words via aural instruction and were then presented with words' spellings in a self-paced reading task. Importantly, novel words were presented in their unique (consistent words) or one of their two possible spellings (preferred and unpreferred inconsistent words). A significant reading advantage observed for aurally acquired words indicates that participants indeed generated orthographic representations before encountering novel words' spellings. However, while no differences in reading times were found for aurally acquired words with unique and those presented in their preferred spellings, unpreferred spellings yielded significantly longer reading times. This shows that orthographic skeletons for words with multiple spellings were generated even in a language in which the risk of generating an incorrect representation is high. This finding raises a possibility that generating orthographic skeletons during spoken word learning may be beneficial. In line with this conclusion is the finding showing that - in interaction with good phonological short-term memory capacity - generating orthographic skeletons is linked to better word recall.
在学习新的口语单词时，说英语的儿童甚至在看到单词的拼写之前就会生成初步的正字法表征（韦格纳等人，2018年）。有趣的是，即使新单词的拼写不确定，至少在像西班牙语这样的透明语言中，这些表征也会生成（耶夫托维奇等人，2022年）。在这里，我们研究这个过程是否依赖于语言的正字法规则，具体来说，即使生成错误表征的可能性很高，对于拼写不确定的单词，是否也会生成正字法框架。46名法国成年人首先通过听觉指令学习新单词，然后在一个自定节奏的阅读任务中呈现单词的拼写。重要的是，新单词以其独特的形式（一致的单词）或其两种可能的拼写形式之一（首选和非首选的不一致单词）呈现。对通过听觉习得的单词观察到的显著阅读优势表明，参与者在遇到新单词的拼写之前确实生成了正字法表征。然而，虽然在通过听觉习得的具有独特拼写形式的单词和以其首选拼写形式呈现的单词之间，阅读时间没有发现差异，但非首选拼写形式的阅读时间明显更长。这表明，即使在一种生成错误表征风险很高的语言中，对于具有多种拼写形式的单词，也会生成正字法框架。这一发现提出了一种可能性，即在口语单词学习过程中生成正字法框架可能是有益的。与这一结论一致的是，研究结果表明，在与良好的语音短期记忆能力相互作用时，生成正字法框架与更好的单词回忆有关。
