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Recent studies have suggested that—beyond automaticity and prosody—reading fluency involves parallel processing of adjacent items presented in a sequence, termed “cascaded processing.” To date, most studies examining cascaded processing have been conducted in alphabetic orthographies. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the cascaded processing hypothesis in Chinese. A total of 119 Grade 1 Chinese children (61 boys and 58 girls; Mage = 7.30 years, SD = 0.31) were assessed on serial and discrete naming of digits as well as on serial and discrete naming of high-frequency one- and two-character words and low-frequency one-character words presented with pinyin. Results of hierarchical regression analyses showed, first, that serial digit naming was a unique predictor of discrete naming of low-frequency one-character words and two-character words, but not of high-frequency one-character words. Second, serial digit naming was a unique predictor of reading of high-frequency one- and two-character word reading after controlling for discrete word reading. These findings suggest that Chinese first graders process high-frequency characters holistically (similar to simple digits), which then facilitates parallel processing of multiple stimuli when they are presented in a sequence.

Fotiadis, F. A., Protopapas, A. (accepted)

In this study, we investigated how word- and text-level processes contribute to different types of reading fluency measures. We aimed to increase our understanding of the underlying processes necessary for fluent reading. The sample included 73 Dutch Grade 3 children, who were assessed on serial word reading rate (familiar words), word-list reading fluency (increasingly difficult words), and sentence reading fluency. Word-level processes were individual word recognition speed (discrete word reading) and sequential processing efficiency (serial digit naming). Text-level processes were receptive vocabulary and syntactic skills. The results showed that word- and text-level processes combined accounted for a comparable amount of variance in all fluency outcomes. Both word-level processes were moderate predictors of all fluency outcomes. However, vocabulary only moderately predicted sentence reading fluency, and syntactic skills merely contributed to sentence reading fluency indirectly through vocabulary. The findings indicate that sequential processing efficiency has a crucial role in reading fluency across various measures besides individual word recognition speed. Additionally, text-level processes come into play when complexity and context availability of fluency measures increases, but the exact timing requires further study. Findings are discussed in terms of future directions and their possible value for diagnostic assessment and intervention of reading difficulties.

Cognitive control is applied in situations that require overriding a habitual and automatic response. The conflict monitoring hypothesis and the Expected Value of Control (EVC) theory as its extension posit a control system responsible for detecting conflicting occasions and adapting to them dynamically within a task. Here we evaluate this prediction in two versions of one of the most popular tasks in cognitive control, namely the Stroop task. We hypothesized that nearby-items interference combines with task interference in the multi-item version effectively turning it into a multi-task that may challenge cognitive control. Adopting an alternative methodology tracking within-task performance, we compared the classical multi-item version of the Stroop task and its single-item counterpart in adults and children. The results revealed a within-task performance decline only in the multi-item version of the task, in both incongruent and neutral conditions, modulated by the presumed maturity of the control system. These findings suggest capacity constraints in control implementation and allocation under conditions requiring parallel execution of multiple cognitive tasks. Task complexity and demands seem to modulate effects on performance. We discuss implications for cognitive control as well as substantial concerns regarding the calculation and use of indices of interference based on the commonly used multi-item version of the Stroop task.

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-3-qjp-10.1177_17470218211047420 for Lexicality effects on orthographic learning in beginning and advanced readers of Dutch: An eye-tracking study by Sietske van Viersen, Athanassios Protopapas, George K Georgiou, Rauno Parrila, Laoura Ziaka and Peter F de Jong in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-2-qjp-10.1177_17470218211047420 for Lexicality effects on orthographic learning in beginning and advanced readers of Dutch: An eye-tracking study by Sietske van Viersen, Athanassios Protopapas, George K Georgiou, Rauno Parrila, Laoura Ziaka and Peter F de Jong in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-2-qjp-10.1177_17470218211047420 for Lexicality effects on orthographic learning in beginning and advanced readers of Dutch: An eye-tracking study by Sietske van Viersen, Athanassios Protopapas, George K Georgiou, Rauno Parrila, Laoura Ziaka and Peter F de Jong in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

According to a popular model of speech production. stress is underspecified in the lexicon, that is. it is specified only for words with stress patterns other than the default, termed the “default metrics” assumption. Alternatively, stress may be fully specified in the lexicon as part of every lexical representation. In the current study the two accounts are tested in the perceptual domain using behavioral and eye-tracking data in Greek. In a first experiment. cross-modal fragment priming was used in a lexical-decision task. According to default metrics, priming should occur for targets with antepenultimate- or final-syllable stress but not for targets with the default penultimate-syllable stress. The same word pairs were used in two subsequent visual world experiments. Default metrics predict an asymmetric pattern of results, namely that incoming spoken words with the default stress pattern should inhibit the activation of lexical representations with nondefault stress, whereas the converse should not be observed: that is, spoken words with nondefault stress should not inhibit representations of words with the default stress. None of the results provided support for the idea of default metrics, leading to alternative conceptualizations regarding the representation of stress.

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-qjp-10.1177_17470218211047420 for Lexicality effects on orthographic learning in beginning and advanced readers of Dutch: An eye-tracking study by Sietske van Viersen, Athanassios Protopapas, George K Georgiou, Rauno Parrila, Laoura Ziaka and Peter F de Jong in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-3-qjp-10.1177_17470218211047420 for Lexicality effects on orthographic learning in beginning and advanced readers of Dutch: An eye-tracking study by Sietske van Viersen, Athanassios Protopapas, George K Georgiou, Rauno Parrila, Laoura Ziaka and Peter F de Jong in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-qjp-10.1177_17470218211047420 for Lexicality effects on orthographic learning in beginning and advanced readers of Dutch: An eye-tracking study by Sietske van Viersen, Athanassios Protopapas, George K Georgiou, Rauno Parrila, Laoura Ziaka and Peter F de Jong in Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

Cognitive control is applied in situations that require override of a habitual and automatic response. The conflict monitoring hypothesis posits a control system responsible for detecting conflicting occasions and adapting to them. In contrast, the strength model of self-control argues that control resources are limited and can be depleted. However, depletion findings are unstable and have been forcefully challenged. Here, we argue that methodological choices such as dual tasks and neutral conditions may have contributed to the controversy. Adopting an alternative methodology evaluating within-task performance, we compared the classical multi-item version of the Stroop task and its single-item counterpart in adults and children. Our results indicated a performance decline only in the multi-item version of the task, in both incongruent and neutral conditions, consistent with the strength model of self-control, due to the need for continuous effort and lack of rest intervals, leading to depletion. Our results challenge the conflict monitoring hypothesis and its recent extension, and they also raise substantial concerns regarding the calculation and use of indices of interference based on the commonly used multi-item version of the Stroop task.

Previous research in Greek aphasia has indicated that functional categories related to verb inflection are differentially impacted, with Aspect most severely affected, Agreement least affected, and Tense occupying an intermediate position. However, research materials were not controlled for overall length or position of the verb within the sentence, confounding functional category with processing load. Using balanced materials, here we tested ten persons with aphasia and ten matched control participants on grammaticality judgment and sentence completion in three functional categories (agreement, tense, and aspect) using ten verbs spanning a range of familiarity. Production results indicated no difference in errors of either lexeme or inflectional morpheme selection. In grammaticality judgment acceptance of incorrect sentences was lower for Agreement but this pattern was mirrored in the control group as well. The results provide no basis to support a specific linguistic deficit in the representation of functional categories in Greek persons with aphasia.

Background In languages with lexical stress, reading aloud must include stress assignment. Stress information sources across languages include word-final letter sequences. Here, we examine whether such sequences account for stress assignment in Greek and whether this is attributable to absolute rules involving accenting morphemes or to probabilistic lexical information. Methods Pseudowords were constructed to not resemble particular words and were suffixed with derivational morphemes associated with specific stress patterns, to be read aloud, presented either without a stress diacritic or with a diacritic congruent or incongruent with the suffix. Morphemes differed in whether or not there were stress competitors ending in the same letter sequences. Results Stress was assigned consistent with the suffix in the absence of the diacritic, more so when there were no stress competitors in the lexicon. Conclusions Results suggest a lexically based probabilistic mechanism taking into account pattern distributions rather than absolute rules based on the morphological accenting. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Derivational suffixes as cues to stress position in reading Greek, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9817.12092. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.

Learning nonnative speech contrasts in adulthood has proven difficult. Standard training methods have achieved moderate effects using explicit instructions and performance feedback. In this study, the authors question preexisting assumptions by demonstrating a superiority of implicit training procedures. They trained 3 groups of Greek adults on a difficult Hindi contrast (a) explicitly, with feedback (Experiment I), or (b) implicitly, unaware of the phoneme distinctions, with (Experiment 2) or without (Experiment 3) feedback. Stimuli were natural recordings of consonant-vowel syllables with retroflex and dental unvoiced stops by a native Hindi speaker. On each trial, participants heard pairs of tokens from both categories and had to identify the retroflex sounds (explicit condition) or the sounds differing in intensity (implicit condition). Unbeknownst to participants, in the implicit conditions, target sounds were always retroflex, and distractor sounds were always dental. Post-training identification and discrimination tests showed improved performance of all groups, compared with a baseline of untrained Greek listeners. Learning was most robust for implicit training without feedback. It remains to be investigated whether implicitly trained skills can generalize to linguistically relevant phonetic categories when appropriate variability is introduced. These findings challenge traditional accounts on the role of feedback in phonetic training and highlight the importance of implicit, reward-based mechanisms.

We examined phonological recoding during silent sentence reading in teenagers with a history of dyslexia and their typically developing peers. Two experiments are reported in which participants' eye movements were recorded as they read sentences containing correctly spelled words (e.g., church), pseudohomophones (e.g., cherch), and spelling controls (e.g., charch). In Experiment 1 we examined foveal processing of the target word/nonword stimuli, and in Experiment 2 we examined parafoveal pre-processing. There were four participant groups-older teenagers with a history of dyslexia, older typically developing teenagers who were matched for age, younger typically developing teenagers who were matched for reading level, and younger teenagers with a history of dyslexia. All four participant groups showed a pseudohomophone advantage, both from foveal processing and parafoveal pre-processing, indicating that teenagers with a history of dyslexia engage in phonological recoding for lexical identification during silent sentence reading in a comparable manner to their typically developing peers.

We develop an unsupervised dual-network connectionist model of category learning in which rules gradually emerge from a standard Kohonen network. The architecture is based on the interaction of a statistical-learning (Kohonen) network and a competitive-learning rule network. The rules that emerge in the rule network are weightings of individual features according to their importance for categorisation. Once the combined system has learned a particular rule, it de-emphasizes those features that are not sufficient for categorisation, thus allowing correct classification of novel, but atypical, stimuli, for which a standard Kohonen network fails. We explain the principles and architectural details of the model and show how it works correctly for stimuli that are misclassified by a standard Kohonen network.

In this paper an analysis of the notion of attention is described that comprises a differentiation according to five stages of an attentional process related to action selection and performance. The first stage deals with the allocation of attention to external and internal stimuli, the second with examination and analysis, the third with decision making and action selection, the fourth with action preparation and performance, and the fifth with action assessment. The analysis involves temporal normalisation and validation based on data from a human operator executing a warfare task.