The Quality of Orthographic Representations and Their Importance for Spelling and Reading

当一个单词存储在内存中时，可以根据它的发音、书写方式或它所代表的概念来访问它。例如，Apple发音为三个音素(例如/æ//p/L/)，并用双辅音分隔两个音节(例如Apple)，表示松脆、甜美的水果。因此，单词学习是在记忆中创造和提炼单词身份的这些语音(声音)、正字法(字母)和语义(意义)成分的过程。这个概念在阅读领域并不新鲜。事实上，二十多年来，联结主义模型和认知模型一直在讨论这一问题。例如，根据词汇质量假说，正是词汇表征的质量导致了准确的拼写和流利的单词阅读(Perfetti，2007)。如果语音、正字法和语义学都是词汇质量的贡献者，那么这些成分中的任何一个的缺陷都应该会抑制单词阅读。然而，考虑到虽然拼写许多单词需要详细的拼写表示法，但阅读可以在不完整的拼写表示法下进行；毕竟，我们可以阅读许多我们可能不会拼写的单词。因此，尽管单词同一性的这三个组成部分的重要性得到了广泛的认可，但正字法质量在单词阅读中所起的作用仍然不确定，而且缺乏直接评估其作用的研究。目前的建议是通过对典型的成年读者进行一系列研究来实现的，在这些研究中，他们的拼写表现直接与阅读各种复杂单词的速度进行了比较。这项拟议中的研究直接解决了这个问题：拼写正确的单词是否能够获得和阅读得更快？目前的建议还包括实验训练研究，考察提高拼写和/或语义表征的质量的训练是否会提高阅读速度。换句话说，通过加强成分表征的质量和它们之间的联系，我们是否会像目前的理论预测的那样，看到阅读通达速度和熟练程度的提高？

When a word is stored in memory, it can be accessed in terms of how it sounds, how it is written, or the concepts it represents. For example 'apple' is pronounced with three phonemes (e.g., /æ/ /p/ l/), written with a doubled consonant separating two syllables (e.g., apple), and signifies a crunchy, sweet fruit. Word learning, then, is the process of creating and refining these phonological (sounds), orthographic (letters), and semantic (meaning) components of word identity in memory. This concept is not new to the reading field. In fact, it has been discussed by connectionist models and cognitive models for over two decades. According to the lexical quality hypothesis for example, it is the quality of the lexical representations that results in accurate spelling and fluent word reading (Perfetti, 2007). If phonology, orthography, and semantics are all contributors to lexical quality, then a deficiency in any one of these components should dampen word reading. Yet consider that while a detailed orthographic representation is needed to spell many words, reading can proceed with incomplete orthographic representations; We can, after all, read many words that we may not be able to spell. Thus, despite widespread acceptance for the importance of all three components of word identity, the role orthographic quality plays in word reading remains uncertain and there is a scarcity of research that directly evaluates its role. The present proposal does so through a series of studies with typical adult readers, in which their spelling performance is directly compared to reading speed across a variety of complex words. The proposed research directly addresses the question: are words that are spelled correctly accessed and read faster? The current proposal also includes experimental training studies that examine whether training to increase the quality of orthographic and/or semantic representations yields increases in reading speed. In other words, by strengthening the quality of the component representations and the links between them, will we see the increase in reading access speed and proficiency as may be predicted by current theory?