Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-mkpzs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:11:41.009Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Evaluating missing-letter effects and comprehension in proficient and nonproficient languages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2015

JOANNA C. BOVEE  and
GARY E. RANEY
JOANNA C. BOVEE*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Chicago
GARY E. RANEY
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Chicago
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Joanna C. Bovee, Department of Psychology (MC 285), University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60607. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study was conducted to examine whether word recognition and comprehension processes change as a function of language proficiency. Participants were highly proficient in English but at a low proficiency level in Spanish. The participants read texts presented in English and Spanish while reading normally or while performing a letter-detection task and then answered comprehension questions that tested their mental representations of the surface form, text base, and situational model. Overall letter-detection error rates were lower when texts were presented in the nonproficient Spanish language. There was a typical missing-letter effect in English, such that more detection errors were made on function than content words. In Spanish, the missing-letter effect was reversed, with more errors on content than function words. Overall comprehension was substantially better when reading English passages than Spanish passages and best at the situation model level. For the English passages, comprehension was reduced during letter detection compared to normal reading. For the Spanish passages, comprehension was similar for letter detection and normal reading. Question type did not systematically vary as a function of language proficiency or task type. These findings highlight differences in cognitive processes during reading as a function of language proficiency and enhance our understanding of the letter-detection task itself.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , March 2016 , pp. 285 - 301
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Brysbaert, M., & New, B. (2009). SubtlexUS: American word frequencies [Database]. Retrieved from http://subtlexus.lexique.orgGoogle Scholar
Chitiri, H. F., & Willows, D. M. (1997). Bilingual word recognition in English and Greek. Applied Psycholinguistics, 18, 139–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Daniel, F., & Raney, G. E. (2007). Capturing the effect of a title on multiple levels of comprehension. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 892–900.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Daniel, F., & Raney, G. E. (2014). The effects of repetition and resource allocation on comprehension during reading. Manuscript in preparation.Google Scholar
Fletcher, C. R. (1994). Levels of representation in memory for discourse. In Gernsbacher, M. A. (Ed.), Handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 589–607). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Fletcher, C. R., & Chrysler, S. T. (1990). Surface forms, textbases, and situation models: Recognition memory for three types of textual information. Discourse Processes, 13, 175–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foucambert, D., & Baillé, J. (2011). Evolution of the missing-letter effect among young readers between ages 5 and 8. Applied Psycholinguistics, 32, 1–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, S. N., Healy, A. F., Koriat, A., & Kreiner, H. (2004). The GO model: A reconsideration of the role of structural units in guiding and organizing text on line. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 11, 428–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, S. N., & Saint-Aubin, J. (2004). Letter detection for homographs with different meanings in different language texts. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 7, 241–253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, S. N., & Saint-Aubin, J. (2008). Inter-lingual homograph letter detection in mixed language text: Persistent missing-letter effects and the effect of language switching. Bilingualism Language and Cognition, 11, 111–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hatch, E., Polin, P., & Part, S. (1974). Acoustic scanning and syntactic processing in three reading experiments: First and second language learners. Journal of Reading Behavior, 6, 275–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Healy, A. F. (1994). Letter detection: A window to unitization and other cognitive processes in reading text. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 1, 333–344.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kintsch, W. (1974). The representation of meaning in memory. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Kintsch, W. (1988). Comprehension: A paradigm for cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kintsch, W., & Van Dijk, T. A. (1978). Toward a model of text comprehension and production. Psychological Review, 85, 363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kintsch, W., Welsch, D., Schmalhofer, F., & Zimny, S. (1990). Sentence memory: A theoretical analysis. Journal of Memory and language, 29, 133–159.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koriat, A., & Greenberg, S. N. (1994). The extraction of phrase structure during reading: Evidence from letter detection errors. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 1, 345–356.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Krech Thomas, H., Healy, A. F., & Greenberg, S. N. (2007). Familiarization effects for bilingual letter detection involving translation or exact text repetition. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 61, 304–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marion, V., Blumenfeld, H. K., & Kaushanskaya, M. (2007). The Language Experience and Proficiency Questionnaire (LEAP-Q): Assessing language profiles in bilinguals and multilinguals. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 50, 940–967.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Minkoff, S. R. B., & Raney, G. E. (2000). Letter-detection errors in the word the: Word frequency versus syntactic structure. Scientific Studies of Reading, 4, 55–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Montrul, S. (2005). Second language acquisition and first language loss in adult early bilinguals: Exploring some differences and similarities. Second Language Research, 21, 199–249.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oliver, W. L., Healy, A. F., & Mross, E. F. (2005). Trade-offs in detecting letters and comprehending text. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 59, 159–167.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Reicher, G. M. (1969). Perceptual recognition as a function of meaningfulness of stimulus material. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 81, 275–280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roy-Charland, A., Saint-Aubin, J., Klein, R. M., & Lawrence, M. (2007). Eye movements as direct tests of the GO model for the missing-letter effect. Perception & Psychophysics, 69, 324–337.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Saint-Aubin, J., Klein, R. M., & Landry, T. (2005). Age changes in the missing-letter effect revisited. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 91, 158–182.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Saint-Aubin, J., & Poirier, M. (1997). The influence of word function in the missing-letter effect: Further evidence from French. Memory & Cognition, 25, 666–676.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tao, L., Healy, A. F., & Bourne, L. E. (1997). Unitization in second-language learning: Evidence from letter detection. American Journal of Psychology, 110, 385–395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Therriault, D. J., & Raney, G. E. (2007). Processing and representing temporal information in narrative text. Discourse Processes, 43, 173–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van Dijk, T. A., & Kintsch, W. (1983). Strategies of discourse comprehension. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Wheeler, D. D. (1970). Processes in word recognition. Cognitive Psychology, 1, 59–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar