Neurophysiological markers of printed word processing and reading fluency in adolescence

ABSTRACT

Reading fluency is one of key facets of reading performance. At the neurophysiological level, as reading skills improve, latencies of P100 and N170 shorten, and the functional role of these ERPs components is expanding. While in primary schoolchildren, only orthographic N170 effects are observed, lexical and grammatical N170 effects are traceable in adulthood. However, previous studies neglect the adolescent sample. The goal of this study was to determine whether adolescents exhibit lexical and grammatical N170 effects and explore the link between reading fluency and P100 and N170 components. We assessed 32 adolescents in the context of a grammaticality judgment ERP experiment and estimated reading fluency. We registered lexical N170 effects indicative of the presence of an adult-like lexical representation system. Moreover, we observed negative correlations between reading fluency and P100 and N170 latencies, which suggest that reading fluency is affected by the speed of visual processing captured by these latencies.

KEYWORDS:

• ERP
• reading fluency
• P100
• N170
• adolescence

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge colleagues of the Center for Cognitive Sciences, Sirius University of Science and Technology E. Semenova, A. Berlin-Khenis, A. Streltsova, D. Kostanian, A. Diatlova, and M. Pashko for their help during the recruitment and data collection phases of the study. The authors also express special gratitude to Natalia Rakhlin, an Associate Professor at Wayne State University, USA, for her essential contribution to the study design development and consultations with the research team.

Author contributions

AR and MM contributed equally to the manuscript production. AR, TL, and OS designed the experiments. MM and AR conducted the studies and analysed the data. MM and AR wrote the manuscript. ELG, TL, and OS edited the text, provided feedback, and contributed to the article. ELG and TL secured the funding. All authors approved the submitted version.

Data availability statement

The analysis code and data that support the findings of this study are openly available on the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/2xf3c/

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (Agreement 075-10-2021-093, Project COG-RND-2138).