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Individual differences in orthographic priming relate to phonological decoding skill in adults

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Abstract

We examined relationships between individual differences in orthographic priming and a battery of measures assessing orthographic processing ability, reading history, current reading ability, and verbal intelligence in university students. Pronounceable and unpronounceable nonword primes preceded word and nonword targets. Individual differences in nonword reading skill and other measures of reading and spelling ability were associated with the degree of orthographic priming. Individuals with less phonological decoding skill benefited more from anagram primes for word targets preceded by unpronounceable primes and nonword targets preceded by pronounceable primes. Analyses of extreme groups revealed that the group with the lowest phonemic decoding efficiency scores showed a general benefit of orthographic relatedness, while the group with the highest phonemic decoding efficiency scores showed a benefit only under certain conditions. Thus, individuals with worse nonword reading skills may have less precise orthographic representations and therefore benefit more from overlapping coarse-grained orthographic information, regardless of the pronounceability of the prime or the lexical status of the target. These findings demonstrate that university students vary in their orthographic processing skill and the degree to which orthographic information is used during word recognition.

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Notes

  1. One individual was an outlier on the Author Recognition Test, with a score of 60, while the next highest score was 37. Correlations repeated without this individual revealed the same general pattern of results. ART scores were not significantly associated with performance on the orthographic choice task, wordlikeness task, or ARHQ. ART scores were, however, significantly related to scores on the PPVT [r(47) = .63, p < .001], SWE [r(47) = .53, p < .001] and PDE [r(47) = .42, p < .005].

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a University of Missouri Research Board Grant to SEW and an UMSL College of Arts and Science Undergraduate Research Grant to ERT.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Missouri – St. Louis, One University Boulevard, 325 Stadler Hall, St. Louis, MO, 63121-4499, USA

    Suzanne E. Welcome & Emma R. Trammel

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  1. Suzanne E. Welcome
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  2. Emma R. Trammel
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Correspondence to Suzanne E. Welcome.

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Handling Editor: Maria Casagrande (Sapienza University of Rome); Reviewers: William Sidney Horton (Northwestern University), Maria Casagrande (Sapienza University of Rome).

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Welcome, S.E., Trammel, E.R. Individual differences in orthographic priming relate to phonological decoding skill in adults. Cogn Process 18, 119–128 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-017-0793-x

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