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The use and nature of grapheme coding during sub-lexical processing and lexical access
Eva Commissaire1, Séverine Casalis2
11 Laboratoire de Psychologie des Cognitions (LPC-EA4440), Faculté de Psychologie, Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (2006)
|April 12, 2017
Summary
Graphemes are processed as units in sub-lexical reading but do not influence lexical access. This suggests graphemes function as orthographic units within a specific reading pathway.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Cognitive Psychology
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Graphemes, the smallest units of written language, play a crucial role in reading.
- Understanding grapheme coding is essential for explaining sub-lexical processing and lexical access.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate grapheme coding during sub-lexical processing and lexical access.
- To differentiate the processing of highly cohesive graphemes from weakly cohesive ones.
Main Methods:
- Experiment 1: Letter detection task comparing single-letter graphemes, highly cohesive complex graphemes, and weakly cohesive complex graphemes.
- Experiment 1 included conditions to minimize phonological influences.
- Experiments 2 & 3: Primed lexical decision task with varying stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) and lexical frequencies, manipulating grapheme completeness in primes.
Main Results:
- Experiment 1 demonstrated that only highly cohesive complex graphemes were processed as units, irrespective of phonological influence.
- Weakly cohesive complex graphemes were not processed as units.
- Experiments 2 & 3 found no evidence for grapheme involvement in lexical access.
Conclusions:
- Graphemes function as sub-lexical orthographic units.
- Grapheme processing appears confined to a sub-lexical reading route.
- The findings highlight the distinction between sub-lexical grapheme units and their role in accessing word meaning.
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