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Orthographic and phonological processing in developing readers revealed by ERPs
Author(s) -
Eddy Marianna D.,
Grainger Jonathan,
Holcomb Phillip J.,
Gabrieli John D. E.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
psychophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.661
H-Index - 156
eISSN - 1469-8986
pISSN - 0048-5772
DOI - 10.1111/psyp.12763
Subject(s) - psychology , priming (agriculture) , n400 , reading (process) , cognitive psychology , neurocognitive , orthography , cognition , linguistics , event related potential , neuroscience , philosophy , botany , germination , biology
The development of neurocognitive mechanisms in single word reading was studied in children ages 8–10 years using ERPs combined with priming manipulations aimed at dissociating orthographic and phonological processes. Transposed‐letter (TL) priming (barin–BRAIN vs. bosin–BRAIN) was used to assess orthographic processing, and pseudohomophone (PH) priming (brane–BRAIN vs. brant–BRAIN) was used to assess phonological processing. Children showed TL and PH priming effects on both the N250 and N400 ERP components, and the magnitude of TL priming correlated positively with reading ability, with better readers showing larger TL priming effects. Phonological priming, on the other hand, did not correlate with reading ability. The positive correlations between TL priming and reading ability in children points to a key role for flexible sublexical orthographic representations in reading development, in line with their hypothesized role in the efficient mapping of orthographic information onto semantic information in skilled readers.