Orthographic precision for word naming in skilled readers

Figures & data

Figure 1. An overview of the three experimental sessions. From “Phonological precision for word recognition in skilled readers,” by M.M.Elsherif, L.R.Wheeldon, and S.Frisson, 2022, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 75(6), p. 1025. CC BY-NC-ND.

Table 1. The individual difference measures used in the current experiment and their groupings. From “Phonological precision for word recognition in skilled readers,” by M.M.Elsherif, L.R.Wheeldon, and S.Frisson, 2022, Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 75(6), p. 1025. CC BY-NC-ND.

Tests	Administration	Measures
Orthography
Author, title and magazine recognition test^a	Mark known authors, book titles and magazine, respectively	Print exposure
Spelling^b	Spell the word dictated	Spelling
Phonology
Phoneme elision^c	Remove a phoneme from a real word to form a new word	Phonological awareness
Memory for digits^c	Recall numbers in the same order	Phonological working memory
Nonword repetition^c	Repeat nonwords	Phonological working memory
Phoneme reversal^c	Reversal of pseudowords to form an existing word	Phonological processing
Rapid letter naming^c	Read letters as fast as you can	Grapheme-phoneme conversion
Reading Fluency
TOWRE: Sight word efficiency^d	Read words for 45s	Word decoding
TOWRE: Phoneme decoding^d	Read pseudowords for 45s	Phonological decoding
Test of irregular word reading efficiency^e	Read irregular words	Lexical reading
Semantics
Expressive vocabulary test^f	Answer the question in relation to the picture	Expressive vocabulary
British Picture Vocabulary Scale^g	Choose out of 4 pictures that reflect the word said	Receptive vocabulary
Gray silent reading test^h	Read stories and answer questions	Comprehension
Raven’s standard progressive matrices^i	Fit the overall patterns with missing panels	Non-verbal intelligence
Inhibitory Control
Naming Stroop^j	Name the font colour, not the word	Verbal competition resolution
Manual Stroop^j	Match the font colour and the word	Non-verbal competition resolution

Note: Test of Word Reading (TOWRE) and Test of Irregular Word Reading Efficiency (TIWRE). ^aCunningham and Stanovich (1990) and Stanovich and West (1989); ^bElliott et al. (1996), ^cWagner et al. (1999), ^dTorgesen et al. (1999), ^eReynolds and Kamphaus (2007), ^fWilliams (2007), ^gDunn et al. (1997), ^hWiederholt & Blalock (2000), ⁱRaven (1960) and ^jStroop (1935).

Table 2. Descriptive statistics for word target characteristics.

	Word Freq	No of Letters	No of Phonemes	Orthographic NHD	Phonological NHD	Phonographic NHD
Dense NHD
Target	7.6	4	3.1	13.5	23.5	7.03
Word Primes
Related (peep-PEEK)	32.8	4	3.2	13.0	23.2	7.35
Unrelated (vile-PEEK)	32.8	4	3.2	13.0	23.2	7.35
Pseudoword primes
Related (peet-PEEK)		4		12.6
Unrelated (vire-PEEK)		4		12.6
Sparse NHD
Target	5.7	4.1	3.8	5.3	8.9	3.53
Word Primes
Related (fund-FUNK)	29.4	4.1	3.8	5.3	9.4	3.50
Unrelated (plot-FUNK)	29.4	4.1	3.8	5.3	9.4	3.50
Pseudoword primes
Related (furk-FUNK)		4.1		5.1
Unrelated (ploq-FUNK)		4.1		5.1

Note. word frequency per million (Freq) and Neighbourhood Density (NHD), both obtained from the CELEX database.

Table 3. Descriptive statistics for pseudoword target characteristics.

	Word Freq	No of Letters	No of Phonemes	Orthographic NHD	Phonological NHD	Phonographic NHD
Dense NHD
Target		4		12.6
Word Primes
Related (hail-HAID)	33.7	4	3.9	13.4	22.8	6.3
Unrelated (luck-HAID)	33.7	4	3.9	13.4	22.8	6.3
Pseudoword primes
Related (hait-HAID)		4		12.5
Unrelated (lusk-HAID)		4		12.5
Sparse NHD
Target		4.1		4.6
Word Primes
Related (clue-CLUS)	28.9	4.1	3.7	5.3	8.8	3.2
Unrelated (drop-CLUS)	28.9	4.1	3.7	5.3	8.8	3.2
Pseudoword primes
Related (clux-CLUS)		4.1		4.7
Unrelated (drot-CLUS)		4.1		4.7

Note. word frequency per million (Freq) and Neighbourhood Density (NHD), both obtained from the CELEX database.

Table 4. Means and standard deviation of all measures.

	Control (n = 84)
Measure	M (SD)	Range
Author Recognition Test (out of 50)	15.2 (7.7)	2–34
Title Recognition Test (out of 50)	18.6 (6.2)	6–34
Magazine Recognition Test (out of 50)	11.26 (4.60)	4–28
British Picture Vocabulary Scale (out of 60)	41.4 (7.3)	23–57
Expressive Vocabulary Test (out of 118)	71.2 (8)	51–89
TOWRE Sight Word Efficiency (out of 108)	87.3 (11.2)	50–108
TOWRE Phoneme Decoding (out of 65)	57.9 (5.6)	35–66
TIWRE (out of 25)	21.2 (1.9)	17–25
CTOPP Phoneme Elision (out of 20)	16.7 (2.4)	9–20
CTOPP Memory for Digits (out of 21)	16.7 (2.1)	12–21
CTOPP Non-Word Repetition (out of 18)	13.7 (1.7)	8–17
CTOPP Rapid Letter Naming (ms)	26.3 (4.8)	15.3–37.6
CTOPP Phoneme Reversal (out of 18)	11.4 (2.6)	2–16
Gray Silent Reading (out of 30)	22.3 (3.3)	14–28
Spelling (out of 20)	16.5 (2.4)	10–20

Note: CTOPP = Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing, TOWRE = Test of Word Reading Efficiency, TIWRE = Test of Irregular Word Reading Efficiency, and IES = Inverse Efficiency Score.

Table 5. Correlations between tasks.

	ZVocab	PE	ZMemory	ZRF	PR	TIWRE	Spell	GSRT
PE	0.16
ZMemory	0.23*	−0.01
ZRF	0.10	−0.02	0.26*
PR	0.32**	0.18^+	0.31**	0.19^+
TIWRE	0.25*	0.18^+	0.22*	0.31**	0.42***
Spell	0.37***	0.10	0.04	0.24*	0.27*	0.36**
GSRT	0.38***	0.28**	0.04	−0.08	0.24*	0.22*	0.06
ZPE	0.35***	0.07	0.13	0.02	0.15	0.24*	0.43**	0.23*

Note: Standard vocabulary composite measure (ZVocab), Phoneme Elision (PE), Standard phonological working memory composite measure (ZMemory), Standard reading fluency composite measure (ZRF), Phoneme reversal (PR), Gray Silent Reading Test (GSRT), Test of Irregular Word Reading Efficiency (TIWRE), Standard print exposure composite measure (ZPE). + p < .10, * p < .05, **, p < .01 and *** p < .001.

Table 6. Components produced by the PCA.

Component 1 Phonological precision	Loading value	Component 2 Orthographic precision	Loading value	Component 3 Semantic Coherence	Loading value
Zmemory	0.73	Spelling	0.87	GSRT	0.84
Phoneme reversal	0.67	ZPrint exposure	0.74	ZVocab	0.54
ZReadingFluency	0.63	ZVocab	0.45	ZReading Fluency	−0.46
TIWRE	0.59
% variance	0.23		0.22		0.17
Cumulative variance	0.23		0.45		0.62

Note: Standard vocabulary composite measure (ZVocab), Phoneme Elision (PE), Standard phonological working memory composite measure (ZMemory), Standard reading fluency composite measure (ZRF), Phoneme Reversal (PR), Gray Silent Reading Test (GSRT), Test of Irregular Word Reading Efficiency (TIWRE), Standard print exposure composite measure (ZPE).

Table 7. Mean response times and proportion correct for each prime lexicality, relatedness and NHD condition for word naming.

	Dense		Sparse
Prime lexicality	Word prime	Pseudoword prime	Word prime	Pseudoword prime
Related RT P correct	475(97) .96 (0.19)	482(99) .95(0.21)	476 (111) .97 (0.18)	474 (100) .96 (0.19)
Unrelated RT P correct	489(94) .95 (0.21)	491(95) .96 (0.19)	495(102) .98 (0.19)	495 (105) .97 (0.17)
Priming effect RT	14	9	19	21
P correct	.01	-.01	.01	-.01

Note: Response times (RT); Proportion (P); Response times are reported in milliseconds and standard deviations are in parentheses.

Table 8. The minimal model output for RTs in the word naming task.

Fixed Effects	Estimate	Std. Error	2.5% CI	97.5% CI	t values
(Intercept)	6.1550	0.0152	6.1252	6.1852	405.55
Priming conditions
NHD	−0.0160	0.0099	−0.0356	0.0359	−1.6
Relatedness	0.0208	0.0063	0.0084	0.0332	3.3*
Prime lexicality	−0.0136	0.0061	−0.0255	−0.0017	−2.2*
Individual Components
Orthographic precision	0.0039	0.0143	−0.0322	0.0244	−0.3
Phonological precision	−0.0259	0.0121	−0.0498	−0.0020	−2.1*
Interactions
NHD * prime lexicality	0.0107	0.0085	−0.0059	0.0273	1.3
NHD * relatedness	0.0200	0.0085	0.0033	0.0366	2.4*
Prime lexicality *relatedness	0.0119	0.0086	−0.0049	0.0287	1.4
Orthographic precision * NHD	0.0063	0.0066	−0.0067	0.0193	1.0
Orthographic precision * prime lexicality	0.0012	0.0062	−0.0109	0.0133	0.2
Orthographic precision * relatedness	0.0036	0.0064	−0.0090	−0.0162	0.6
NHD * prime lexicality * relatedness	−0.0071	0.0120	−0.0306	0.0165	−0.6
Orthographic precision * NHD * prime lexicality	−0.0150	0.0086	−0.0319	0.0020	−1.7
Orthographic precision * NHD * relatedness	−0.0127	0.0086	−0.0296	0.0043	−1.5
Orthographic precision * prime lexicality * relatedness	−0.0114	0.0088	−0.0287	0.0059	−1.3
Orthographic precision * NHD * prime lexicality * relatedness	0.0402	0.0123	0.0160	0.0643	3.3*
Random effects
Grouping	Effect	Variance	SD	Correlation
Subject	(Intercept)	0.02	0.12
	NHD	0.0006	0.02	0.79
	relatedness	0.0003	0.02	−0.48	−0.63
item	(intercept)	0.001	0.03
Residual		0.03	0.17

Note. * p < .05

Figure 2. Reaction time (RT) priming effects (in ms) for high- and low-N targets preceded by word and pseudoword primes and separated by the orthographic precision component. Positive priming effects reflect facilitation for targets preceded by related primes, relative to unrelated primes. Error bars represent 95% confidence interval for each condition.

Table 9. Mean response times and proportion correct for each prime lexicality, relatedness and NHD condition for pseudoword naming.

	Dense		Sparse
Prime lexicality	Word Prime	Pseudoword prime	Word Prime	Pseudoword prime
Related RT P correct	510 (116) .95 (0.22)	512 (117) .95 (0.22)	513 (125) .95 (0.23) 531 (120) .95 (0.22) 18 0	509 (124) .96 (0.21)
Unrelated RT P correct	517 (109) .96 (0.20)	524 (116) .94 (0.24)		525 (120) .95 (0.21)
Priming effect RT	7	12		16
P correct	–.01	.01		.01

Note: Response times (RT); Proportion (P); Response times are measured in milliseconds and standard deviations are in parentheses.

Table 10. The minimal model output for RTs in the pseudoword naming task.

Fixed Effects	Estimate	Std. Error	2.5% CI	97.5% CI	t values
(Intercept)	6.2120	0.0158	6.1809	6.2434	393.02
Priming conditions
NHD	−0.0044	0.0095	−0.0231	0.0143	0.5
Relatedness	0.0202	0.0057	0.0090	0.0313	3.6*
Prime lexicality	0.0019	0.0045	−0.0069	0.0107	0.4
Individual components
Orthographic precision	−0.0316	0.0146	−0.0605	−0.0027	−2.2*
Phonological precision	−0.0564	0.0144	−0.0849	−0.0279	−3.9*
Interactions
Prime lexicality * relatedness	−0.0011	0.0064	−0.0136	0.0114	−0.2
NHD * relatedness	0.0168	0.0064	0.0043	0.0293	2.6*
Phonological precision * relatedness	0.0069	0.0035	0.00005	0.0138	2.0*
Orthographic precision * prime lexicality	−0.0084	0.0046	−0.0174	0.0006	−1.8.
Orthographic precision * relatedness	−0.0084	0.0048	−0.0178	0.0010	−1.8.
Orthographic precision * relatedness * prime lexicality	0.0170	0.0066	0.0042	0.0299	2.6*

Random effects
Grouping	Effect	Variance	SD	Correlation
Subject	(Intercept)	0.02	0.13
	NHD	0.0004	0.02	0.46
	relatedness	0.0001	0.01	−0.81	−0.24
item	(intercept)	0.001	0.04
Residual		0.03	0.18

Note: p < .10, * p < .05.

Figure 3. Reaction time (RT) priming effects (in ms) for pseudword targets preceded by word and pseudoword primes and separated by the orthographic precision component. Positive priming effects reflect facilitation for targets preceded by related primes, relative to unrelated primes. Error bars represent 95% confidence interval for each condition.

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