Department of Linguistics, University of Iowa, Iowa City, 52242, USA; Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, 52242, USA.
Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, 52242, USA.
Cognition. 2024 Oct;251:105899. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105899. Epub 2024 Jul 25.
In typical adults, recognizing both spoken and written words is thought to be served by a process of competition between candidates in the lexicon. In recent years, work has used eye-tracking in the visual world paradigm to characterize this competition process over development. It has shown that both spoken and written word recognition continue to develop through adolescence (Rigler et al., 2015). It is still unclear what drives these changes in real-time word recognition over the school years, as there are dramatic changes in language, the onset of reading instruction, and gains in domain general function during this time. This study began to address these issues by asking whether changes in real-time word recognition derive from changes in overall language and reading ability or reflect more general age-related development. This cross-sectional study examined 278 school-age children (Grades 1-3) using the Visual World Paradigm to assess both spoken and written word recognition, along with multiple measures of language, reading and phonology. A structural equation model applied to these ability measures found three factors representing language, reading, and phonology. Multiple regression analyses were used to understand how these three factors relate to real-time spoken and written word recognition as well as a non-linguistic variant of the VWP intended to capture decision speed, eye-movement factors, and other non-language/reading differences. We found that for both spoken and written word recognition, the speed of activating target words in both domains was more closely tied to the relevant ability (e.g., reading for written word recognition) than was age. We also examined competition resolution (how fully competitors were suppressed late in processing). Here, spoken word recognition showed only small, developmental effects that were only related to phonological processing, suggesting links to developmental language disorder. However, in written word recognition, competitor resolution showed large impacts of development which were strongly linked to reading. This suggests the dimensionality of real-time lexical processing may differ across domains. Importantly, neither spoken nor written word recognition is fully described by changes in non-linguistic skills assessed with non-linguistic VWP, and the non-linguistic VWP was linked to differences in language and reading. These findings suggest that spoken and written word recognition continue past the first year of life and are mostly driven by ability and not only by overall maturation.
在典型的成年人中，识别口语和书面语被认为是通过词汇表中的候选者之间的竞争过程来实现的。近年来，研究人员使用视觉世界范式中的眼动追踪技术来描述这一竞争过程在发展过程中的变化。研究表明，口语和书面语的识别能力在青少年时期仍在继续发展（Rigler 等人，2015）。目前尚不清楚在学校期间，实时单词识别的这些变化是由语言、阅读教学的开始以及在此期间领域通用功能的提高驱动的。本研究通过询问实时单词识别的变化是否源自整体语言和阅读能力的变化，或者反映更普遍的与年龄相关的发展，开始解决这些问题。这项横断面研究使用视觉世界范式评估了 278 名学龄儿童（1-3 年级）的口语和书面语识别能力，以及语言、阅读和语音学的多项测量。应用于这些能力测量的结构方程模型发现了三个代表语言、阅读和语音学的因素。多元回归分析用于了解这三个因素如何与实时口语和书面语识别以及旨在捕获决策速度、眼动因素和其他非语言/阅读差异的视觉世界范式的非语言变体相关。我们发现，对于口语和书面语识别，两个领域中激活目标词的速度与相关能力（例如，书面语识别的阅读能力）更为密切相关，而与年龄的关系较小。我们还检查了竞争解决情况（处理后期竞争对手的抑制程度）。在这里，口语识别仅显示出与语音处理相关的较小的、发展性的影响，这表明与发展性语言障碍有关。然而，在书面语识别中，竞争解决情况显示出与阅读密切相关的巨大发展影响。这表明实时词汇处理的维度可能在不同领域有所不同。重要的是，无论是口语还是书面语识别，都不能完全由非语言视觉世界范式评估的非语言技能的变化来描述，并且非语言视觉世界范式与语言和阅读的差异有关。这些发现表明，口语和书面语识别在生命的第一年之后仍在继续，并且主要由能力驱动，而不仅仅是由整体成熟度驱动。
