Charles A. Perfetti - US grants

This project seeks to illuminate the role that implicit speech processes play in silent reading. Although subvocal activity has long been known to occur during reading, its significance and the conditions controlling it are not well understood. There is disagreement about whether this speech activity is functional or merely a by-product of no significance. The central assumption of the theory underlying this project, automatic activation theory, is that identification of printed words routinely causes activation of speech segments associated with letters and with the words themselves. This contrasts with the view ("dual route" theory) that printed words are sometimes "recoded" into speech and at other times identified directly through the "visual route." A second assumption of automatic activation theory is that the speech code, once activated, remains part of the mental representation of a sentence until certain comprehension processes have been completed. The two assumptions of automatic activation theory will be tested in two types of experiments: One type will use backward visual masking, an experimental procedure in which a word is flashed on the screen for a very short period of time, followed by a brief flash of a "mask", a visual display that may or may not share specific characteristics of the word it follows. Recent research has found that the degree of disruption caused by a mask depends both on the degree to which the mask shares speech segments and also on the degree to which the mask shares letters with the word it masks. The masking experiments will vary characteristics of the word being masked that usually affect the speed at which it is identified; this will provide a situation in which the automatic activation and the dual route theories make different predictions. The second kind of experiment will focus on the role of speech in reading by examining the visual tongue-twister effect: The time for silent reading of sentences that repeat speech segments, e.g., "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers..", is longer than for normal sentences. The experiments will address whether such effects occur in extended text reading and whether they are diminished when the reader has a goal of gist comprehension rather than detailed understanding, situations for which the two theories make different predictions. This research has implications for the nature of reading disability. According to available evidence, it is quite likely that some kinds of reading disability are linked to defective use of speech segments in learning to read and in memory for linguistic input. To the extent that this project sheds some light on normal reading processes, it may help in understanding the nature of the speech-related defect in some cases of disability.

This project will compare reading processes in three different writing systems: English, Chinese, and Hebrew. Because these three writing systems differ in structure, they may also differ in how they are read. The key difference concerns how the sounds of the language are connected to the writing. In English, which is an alphabetic system, sounds and letters can be connected. In Chinese, since there are no letters, the only speech sounds involved in reading should derive from whole words. Hebrew is an intermediate case, having letters, but omitting vowels. The research method will employ experiments on word identification in the three systems. As a result of these comparisons, the research will identify both the universal role of phonology across different writing systems and the specific character each system provides to reading. In the long run, the insights derived from this research can help us devise strategies to overcome reading disabilities in English and other languages.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application aims to acquire evidence on the role of word knowledge in comprehension skill. Its research aims to identify two components of the word knowledge -comprehension link: (1) the consequences of word knowledge for children's and adults'comprehension processes and, more specifically, the ability to integrate word meanings in text comprehension. (2) How children and adults learn the meanings of new words during reading and how this learning is affected by their comprehension skill. In pursuing these two aims, the project addresses how the relationship between word knowledge (and word learning) and comprehension change across schooling. Its hypothesis is that, despite the skill development that occurs across ages, the general relationship among word knowledge, new word learning, and comprehension is unchanging from middle school to young adulthood. The research methods for these aims require fine-grain measures taken during word-by-word reading and word learning. For this purpose, much of the research used event related potentials (ERPs) measures, which are voltage shifts measure on the scalp surface in response to specific experimental events. For example, ERPs taken during text reading reveal voltage shifts that indicate how readily the reader is able to integrate the meaning of the word with the prior text. This indicator, furthermore, appears more robustly for readers of high comprehension skill than for readers of low comprehension skill. As a second example, ERP measures can produce indicators of new word learning. After learning the meaning of a new word, ERPs recorded when the new word is viewed show specific markers of the learning experience and of the use of the newly learned meaning in a meaning judgment task. Further, the robustness of the learning signal produced by the new word is related to the comprehension skill of the reader. The research takes advantage of these observations in a series of studies with both children and adults, whose word knowledge and comprehension skill are assessed and related to outcomes of the experiments. The studies are designed to gain important results that will increase understanding of how individual skill is related to processes of word-by-word comprehension and the ability to learn the meanings of new words through reading. The work of the project has implications for the broad health-related goals of NIH, especially in contributing to research on the psychological, language and educational development of children. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE This project will obtain important scientific information on children's and adults'reading comprehension, especially the importance of word knowledge and learning new words as components of reading skill. The work of the project has implications for the broad health-related goals of NIH, especially in contributing to research on the psychological, language and educational development of children.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application aims to acquire evidence on the role of word knowledge in comprehension skill. Its research aims to identify two components of the word knowledge -comprehension link: (1) the consequences of word knowledge for children's and adults'comprehension processes and, more specifically, the ability to integrate word meanings in text comprehension. (2) How children and adults learn the meanings of new words during reading and how this learning is affected by their comprehension skill. In pursuing these two aims, the project addresses how the relationship between word knowledge (and word learning) and comprehension change across schooling. Its hypothesis is that, despite the skill development that occurs across ages, the general relationship among word knowledge, new word learning, and comprehension is unchanging from middle school to young adulthood. The research methods for these aims require fine-grain measures taken during word-by-word reading and word learning. For this purpose, much of the research used event related potentials (ERPs) measures, which are voltage shifts measure on the scalp surface in response to specific experimental events. For example, ERPs taken during text reading reveal voltage shifts that indicate how readily the reader is able to integrate the meaning of the word with the prior text. This indicator, furthermore, appears more robustly for readers of high comprehension skill than for readers of low comprehension skill. As a second example, ERP measures can produce indicators of new word learning. After learning the meaning of a new word, ERPs recorded when the new word is viewed show specific markers of the learning experience and of the use of the newly learned meaning in a meaning judgment task. Further, the robustness of the learning signal produced by the new word is related to the comprehension skill of the reader. The research takes advantage of these observations in a series of studies with both children and adults, whose word knowledge and comprehension skill are assessed and related to outcomes of the experiments. The studies are designed to gain important results that will increase understanding of how individual skill is related to processes of word-by-word comprehension and the ability to learn the meanings of new words through reading. The work of the project has implications for the broad health-related goals of NIH, especially in contributing to research on the psychological, language and educational development of children. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE This project will obtain important scientific information on children's and adults'reading comprehension, especially the importance of word knowledge and learning new words as components of reading skill. The work of the project has implications for the broad health-related goals of NIH, especially in contributing to research on the psychological, language and educational development of children.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application aims to acquire evidence on the role of word knowledge in comprehension skill. Its research aims to identify two components of the word knowledge -comprehension link: (1) the consequences of word knowledge for children's and adults'comprehension processes and, more specifically, the ability to integrate word meanings in text comprehension. (2) How children and adults learn the meanings of new words during reading and how this learning is affected by their comprehension skill. In pursuing these two aims, the project addresses how the relationship between word knowledge (and word learning) and comprehension change across schooling. Its hypothesis is that, despite the skill development that occurs across ages, the general relationship among word knowledge, new word learning, and comprehension is unchanging from middle school to young adulthood. The research methods for these aims require fine-grain measures taken during word-by-word reading and word learning. For this purpose, much of the research used event related potentials (ERPs) measures, which are voltage shifts measure on the scalp surface in response to specific experimental events. For example, ERPs taken during text reading reveal voltage shifts that indicate how readily the reader is able to integrate the meaning of the word with the prior text. This indicator, furthermore, appears more robustly for readers of high comprehension skill than for readers of low comprehension skill. As a second example, ERP measures can produce indicators of new word learning. After learning the meaning of a new word, ERPs recorded when the new word is viewed show specific markers of the learning experience and of the use of the newly learned meaning in a meaning judgment task. Further, the robustness of the learning signal produced by the new word is related to the comprehension skill of the reader. The research takes advantage of these observations in a series of studies with both children and adults, whose word knowledge and comprehension skill are assessed and related to outcomes of the experiments. The studies are designed to gain important results that will increase understanding of how individual skill is related to processes of word-by-word comprehension and the ability to learn the meanings of new words through reading. The work of the project has implications for the broad health-related goals of NIH, especially in contributing to research on the psychological, language and educational development of children. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE This project will obtain important scientific information on children's and adults'reading comprehension, especially the importance of word knowledge and learning new words as components of reading skill. The work of the project has implications for the broad health-related goals of NIH, especially in contributing to research on the psychological, language and educational development of children.

Many children and adults struggle to comprehend what they read, which interferes with academic success, professional development, and engagement with society. This project seeks to understand the specific reading comprehension challenges faced by adult learners when English is not their native language. The research strategy is to identify the factors that affect incremental reading comprehension – comprehension that builds as words are recognized, understood, and connected to what has already been read.

The project assesses the relative contributions of word-based factors in reading comprehension (such as their familiarity and their meaning), sentence-based factors (such as their structure and grammatical form) and the interaction of factors (e.g., how predictable the word is in particular sentence contexts). Adult learners read authentic texts for which statistical language models have assessed the grammatical, lexical, and predictive properties. The investigators collect behavioral measures (e.g., the time taken to read each word) and electrophysiological measures (event-related potentials) to determine 1) whether English sentence structure contributes more to reading comprehension of non-native speakers learning to read English than to native English speakers' comprehension and 2) whether the role of sentence structure in reading comprehension of non-native learners depends, in part, on the similarity between the native and non-native grammars. The work has the potential to elucidate critical issues in reading that have major implications for education, and in particular for children with dyslexia and other learning disabilities.

This project is funded by the Perception, Action, and Cognition Program with co-funding from the EHR Core Research Program.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.