Immediate creation of spelling expectations during explicit versus implicit auditory word learning

When learning novel spoken words, literate children and adults have been shown to generate preliminary orthographic representations (orthographic skeletons) before seeing the words' spellings. This process seems to occur even when multiple spellings are possible (e.g., in Spanish a novel word /bapu/ can be spelled < bapu > or < vapu >). Here, we investigate whether orthographic skeletons are generated any time a novel word is learned or only during explicit word learning. Ninety-six Spanish-speaking adults learned novel spoken Spanish words with one (consistent words) or two possible spellings (inconsistent words) either through explicit training (explicit learners) or implicit training (implicit learners). Immediately after training, both groups read the novel words embedded in sentences in a self-paced reading task. The results showed differences in reading times for words learned through explicit versus implicit instruction: explicit learners read recently acquired words with one spelling faster than those with two spellings only when the latter were presented in the unpreferred spelling option. This suggests that explicit learners generated orthographic skeletons as a result of aural training. No differences in reading times for words with different spellings were observed in implicit learners. We conclude that generating orthographic skeletons during auditory word learning is not automatic and unconscious.