Time course analyses of orthographic and phonological priming effects during word recognition in a transparent orthography

Abstract

In opaque orthographies, the activation of orthographic and phonological codes follows distinct time courses during visual word recognition. However, it is unclear how orthography and phonology are accessed in more transparent orthographies. Therefore, we conducted time course analyses of masked priming effects in the transparent Dutch orthography. The first study used targets with small phonological differences between phonological and orthographic primes, which are typical in transparent orthographies. Results showed consistent orthographic priming effects, yet phonological priming effects were absent. The second study explicitly manipulated the strength of the phonological difference and revealed that both orthographic and phonological priming effects became identifiable when phonological differences were strong enough. This suggests that, similar to opaque orthographies, strong phonological differences are a prerequisite to separate orthographic and phonological priming effects in transparent orthographies. Orthographic and phonological priming appeared to follow distinct time courses, with orthographic codes being quickly translated into phonological codes and phonology dominating the remainder of the lexical access phase.

Keywords:

• Time course analysis
• Masked priming
• Visual word recognition
• Orthographic and phonological code activation
• Orthographic depth

We would like to thank Jasper Wijnen for programming the lexical decision task, Bert Molenkamp for technical assistance, and Anoek Appelboom, Sam Beekhuizen, Yke de Boer, Judou Breukers, Nienke Dekker, Jesse van den Doren, Laura Gerritsen, Alexander Mappes, Ileen Smits, and Michiel de Weger for assistance with data collection.

Supplemental material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the article page online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2013.879192

Notes

¹These targets were the word target “lijn” meaning “line”, and nonword targets “zwacht” en “belijk”.

²We refer to the phonological manipulation as contrasting targets with either a small or a large phonological difference between the phonological and orthographic prime. However, this same phonological manipulation has also been described as contrasting phonological primes with either large or small orthographic overlap with the target.

³These included the PDsmall word targets “klucht” meaning “comedy”, “fjord” meaning “fjord”, “smaad” meaning “aspersion”, “locus” meaning “locus”, the PDlarge word targets “foyer” meaning “foyer”, “schub” meaning “scale”, “bidon” meaning “water bottle”, “pipet” meaning “pipette”, “geisha” meaning “geisha”, “quote” meaning “quote”, “twijg” meaning “twig”, and the nonword targets “geleg”, “wraad”, “smicht”, and “schijl”.

⁴One participant had a normal RT pattern, but severely deviating RTs to control primed targets at 67 ms. Therefore, only these targets were removed from the analyses.