In the study of reading, there is a debate about whether letters or graphemes are the primary units of perception. A promising data basis for empirically contributing to this debate can be gained from measuring the perception of single vowel letters compared to vowel digraphs. We used letter detection with masked pseudoword primes on pseudoword targets among skilled native readers in order to test for the existence and time course of vowel digraph effects during reading in deep (English) and shallow (Dutch) orthographies. Selecting these two languages, which are similar in terms of syllabic structure, allowed us to use exactly the same pseudoword stimuli. Results indicate that whereas the Dutch readers show letter effects at short prime durations and digraph effects at longer prime durations, the English readers show only letter effects. These findings are inconsistent with a strong version of the claim that graphemes are perceptual in nature, but consistent with models of reading acquisition and skilled reading that predict that, although letter effects always precede grapheme effects, grapheme activation proceeds faster in relatively shallow orthographies than in relatively deep ones.
2021. When two vowels go walking: An ERP study of the vowel team rule. Psychophysiology 58:9
Commissaire, Eva & Séverine Casalis
2018. The use and nature of grapheme coding during sub-lexical processing and lexical access. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 71:6 ► pp. 1324 ff.
Begby, Endre
2017. Perceptual expansion under cognitive guidance: Lessons from language processing. Mind & Language 32:5 ► pp. 564 ff.
Augustine, Elaine, Susan S. Jones, Linda B. Smith & Erica Longfield
2015. Relations Among Early Object Recognition Skills: Objects and Letters. Journal of Cognition and Development 16:2 ► pp. 221 ff.
Commissaire, Eva, Lynne G. Duncan & Séverine Casalis
2014. Grapheme coding in L2: How do L2 learners process new graphemes?. Journal of Cognitive Psychology 26:7 ► pp. 725 ff.
James, Karin H. & Laura Engelhardt
2012. The effects of handwriting experience on functional brain development in pre-literate children. Trends in Neuroscience and Education 1:1 ► pp. 32 ff.
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