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The development of morphological representations in young readers: a cross‐modal priming study
Author(s) -
Quémart Pauline,
Gonnerman Laura M.,
Downing Jennifer,
Deacon S. Hélène
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
developmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.801
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1467-7687
pISSN - 1363-755X
DOI - 10.1111/desc.12607
Subject(s) - morpheme , psychology , priming (agriculture) , lexical decision task , linguistics , similarity (geometry) , word recognition , semantics (computer science) , meaning (existential) , task (project management) , word (group theory) , cognitive psychology , communication , reading (process) , cognition , artificial intelligence , computer science , philosophy , botany , germination , management , neuroscience , economics , image (mathematics) , psychotherapist , biology , programming language
The way children organize words in their memory has intrigued many researchers in the past 20 years. Given the large number of morphologically complex words in many languages, the influence of morphemes on this organization is being increasingly examined. The aim of this study was to understand how morphemic information influences English‐speaking children's word recognition. Children in grades 3 and 5 were asked to complete a lexical decision priming task. Prime‐target pairs varied in semantic similarity, with low (e.g., belly ‐ bell ), moderate (e.g., lately ‐ late ), and high similarity relations (e.g., boldly ‐ bold ). There were also word pairs similar in form only (e.g., spinach ‐ spin ) and in semantics only (e.g., garbage ‐ trash ). Primes were auditory and targets were presented visually. Analyses of children's lexical decision times revealed graded priming effects as a function of the convergence of form and meaning. These results indicate that developing readers do not necessarily need to lexicalize morphological units to facilitate word recognition. Their ability to process the morphological structure of words depends on their ability to develop connections between form and meaning.