Activation and inhibition processes in the reader's lexicon

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

SUMMARY      One principle virtually all theories of skilled reading share is that word identification is a competitive process. That is, when a word is first viewed, the mental representation for it as well as those for similarly spelled words start to become active. If the system is flawless, in time the mental representation of the appropriate word will inhibit those of the inappropriate words and become the only one remaining active.        The purpose of this proposal is to continue my examination of the processes by which the appropriate word representation wins this competition. One major question is how to define "similarly spelled words". Most theories assume that the mental representation for TRAIT would become momentarily active when reading TRAIL (a one-letter substitution), however, what about the word TRIAL. What about RAIL, etc.? Recent results in my lab suggest that the mental representations that initially become active is a much larger set than most theories suggest, implying that the competitive process is also more complicated than originally thought.      The means for examining these ideas involves presenting single (target) words on a computer screen following word or partial word "primes" that are presented briefly and masked so that they don't reach consciousness. Readers are timed while they overtly respond to the targets. It also involves presenting nonwords that resemble words and, again, measuring latencies in a word/nonword discrimination task. By gaining a better understanding of this competitive process, we hope to be able to lay down a better foundation for understanding: a) normal reading in adults, b) how best to teach children to read and c) how best to remediate reading difficulties in reading disabled individuals.