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The development of efficient and reliable online assessments has become increasingly important in the digital era. We developed a 10-min online word reading assessment of global English based on the existing paper-and-pencil version of our English silent word reading test. The test includes two parts, namely, random word recognition and contextual word reading. A total of 889 participants (437 children and 392 adults; 62.7% female) took part in the study. They were from various regions including mainland China, Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, Poland, the United States, and the Philippines. Reliability and validity analyses on various demographics samples (by age and country/region of origin) demonstrated that the WordSword Test is highly reliable and valid (e.g., the correlation of this test with other English reading measures were above.80). Education level was positively correlated with test performance, while the correlations between age and test performance were not consistent. Ninety-seven children participants also took the paper-and-pencil version of the WordSword Test. The correlation between performances on the online and paper-and-pencil versions of the test was.879, one year apart. With more children and adults taking the WordSword Test, we ultimately hope to establish norms by area, grade level, and age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although the impact of acoustic challenge on speech processing and memory increases as a person ages, older adults may engage in strategies that help them compensate for these demands. In the current preregistered study, older adults (n = 48) listened to sentences—presented in quiet or in noise—that were high constraint with either expected or unexpected endings or were low constraint with unexpected endings. Pupillometry and EEG were simultaneously recorded, and subsequent sentence recognition and word recall were measured. Like young adults in prior work, we found that noise led to increases in pupil size, delayed and reduced ERP responses, and decreased recall for unexpected words. However, in contrast to prior work in young adults where a larger pupillary response predicted a recovery of the N400 at the cost of poorer memory performance in noise, older adults did not show an associated recovery of the N400 despite decreased memory performance. Instead, we found that in quiet, increases in pupil size were associated with delays in N400 onset latencies and increased recognition memory performance. In conclusion, we found that transient variation in pupil-linked arousal predicted trade-offs between real-time lexical processing and memory that emerged at lower levels of task demand in aging. Moreover, with increased acoustic challenge, older adults still exhibited costs associated with transient increases in arousal without the corresponding benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the initial stages of orthographic learning in real time as literate adults learned spellings for spoken pseudowords during fMRI scanning. Participants were required to learn and store orthographic word forms because the pseudoword spellings were not uniquely predictable from sound to letter mappings. With eight learning trials per word form, we observed changes in the brain's response as learning was taking place. Accuracy was evaluated during learning, immediately after scanning, and 1 week later. We found evidence of two distinct learning systems—hippocampal and neocortical—operating during orthographic learning, consistent with the predictions of dual systems theories of learning/memory such as the complementary learning systems framework [McClelland, J. L., McNaughton, B. L., & O'Reilly, R. C. Why there are complementary learning systems in the hippocampus and neocortex: Insights from the successes and failures of connectionist models of learning and memory. Psychological Review, 102, 419–457, 1995]. The bilateral hippocampus and the visual word form area (VWFA) showed significant BOLD response changes over learning, with the former exhibiting a rising pattern and the latter exhibiting a falling pattern. Moreover, greater BOLD signal increase in the hippocampus was associated with better postscan recall. In addition, we identified two distinct bilateral brain networks that mirrored the rising and falling patterns of the hippocampus and VWFA. Functional connectivity analysis revealed that regions within each network were internally synchronized. These novel findings highlight, for the first time, the relevance of multiple learning systems in orthographic learning and provide a paradigm that can be used to address critical gaps in our understanding of the neural bases of orthographic learning in general and orthographic word-form learning specifically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The Rey's 15 words test is currently the most frequently used task in Italy to detect memory deficits in AD. The current standardised version is however quite outdated and lacks some cognitive indexes which may highlight problems in recall or encoding processes. The aim of the study was to update the normative data of the test and to consider some variables which were not accounted for in the original study, that is, recognition, learning rate and forgetfulness. We also adopted the process scores approach to ascertain the effects of serial position (primacy and recency). Methods: Three hundred ninety-six healthy participants were recruited. To detect any variables useful for intercepting the early stages of dementia, a group of 208 patients in the very early stage of AD was also recruited. Linear models were used to calculate the corrections scores for age, education, and gender, and ROCs were used to calculate cut-offs based on the maximum sum of sensitivity and specificity and the positive and negative predictive values. Results: All main indexes showed excellent Area Under the Curve (0.90–1), strong sensitivity and PPVs for distinguishing between the HCs and AD participants. However, the Intrusions index performed poorly in all parameters. Conclusion: The study provides updated, normative data which may be reliably used as a cognitive marker to detect early AD. The strength of the study is the large sample size and the number of indexes which make it possible to explore the utility of memory test process scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Although most teaching around feedback focuses on the delivery, one must consider that the word 'feedback' is not a neutral word. It inflicts a range of emotions that, when used, may influence the effectiveness of the feedback process. A more profound understanding of health professions educators' perceptions regarding the word 'feedback' can help explain discrepancies between the provision, reception and acceptance of feedback. Methods: This is a qualitative inductive, reflective thematic analysis study. The authors interviewed 22 health professions educators participating in an online workshop to develop their feedback giving skills on their initial perspectives of the word 'feedback'. Results: We found four major themes: (1) Can I tell you a little story about my feedback experience? (2) It is probably going to be negative. (3) There is always something to learn if you are willing to hear the message. (4) It is like getting a report card. From the data, we suggest one key antecedent and two practical approaches one could take when giving feedback. Conclusion: In this article, the authors highlight barriers during the feedback process due to the mere perception of the nature of feedback and the connotations associated with the term itself and suggest approaches that can refocus conversations towards a shared meaning and purpose of improvement, despite the preconceptions of the word 'feedback'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The foveal load hypothesis assumes that the ease (or difficulty) of processing the currently fixated word in a sentence can influence processing of the upcoming word(s), such that parafoveal preview is reduced when foveal load is high. Recent investigations using pseudo-character previews reported an absence of foveal load effects in Chinese reading. Substantial Chinese studies to date provide some evidence to show that parafoveal words may be processed orthographically, phonologically, or semantically. However, it has not yet been established whether parafoveal processing is equivalent in terms of the type of parafoveal information extracted (orthographic, phonological, semantic) under different foveal load conditions. Accordingly, the present study investigated this issue with two experiments. Participants' eye movements were recorded as they read sentences in which foveal load was manipulated by placing a low- or high-frequency word N preceding a critical word. The preview validity of the upcoming word N + 1 was manipulated in Experiment 1, and word N + 2 in Experiment 2. The parafoveal preview was either identical to word N + 1(or word N + 2); orthographically related; phonologically related; semantically related; or an unrelated pseudo-character. The results showed robust main effects of frequency and preview type on both N + 1 and N + 2. Crucially, however, interactions between foveal load and preview type were absent, indicating that foveal load does not modulate the types of parafoveal information processed during Chinese reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Words with high orthographic relatedness are termed "word neighbors" (angle/angel; birch/birth). Activation-based models of word recognition assume that lateral inhibition occurs between words and their activated neighbors. However, studies of eye movements during reading have not found inhibitory effects in early measures assumed to reflect lexical access (e.g., gaze duration). Instead, inhibition in eye-movement studies has been found in later measures of processing (e.g., total time, regressions in). We conducted an eye-movement boundary change study (Rayner, Cognitive Psychology, 7(1), 65-81, 1975) that manipulated the parafoveal preview of the word following the neighbor word (word N+1). In this way, we explored whether the late inhibitory effects seen with transposed letter words and words with higher-frequency neighbors result from reduced parafoveal preview due to increased foveal load and/or interference during late stages of lexical processing (the L2 stage within the E-Z Reader framework). For word N+1, while there were clear preview effects, there was not an effect of the neighborhood status of word N, nor a significant interaction. This suggests that the late inhibitory effects of earlier eye-movement studies are driven by misidentification of neighbor words rather than being due to increased foveal load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on addressing the challenges faced by intermediate students struggling with word recognition in grade-level texts. Topics include strategies for when and how to mediate word recognition in these texts, methods for differentiating texts to ensure adequate time-in-text, and approaches to closing decoding gaps.

Ensuring effective texts for student reading acquisition is a shared goal. This paper addresses the efficacy of decodable and leveled texts, their word features, and outcomes of reorganizing texts by vowel patterns and topics. Sparse evidence supports one text type's superiority in building a strong reading foundation. Further, the decoding demands of decodable and leveled texts diminish after initial instruction. Studies show reorganizing leveled texts according to a decoding curriculum aids reading acquisition. This finding is the basis for illustrating how existing texts can be reorganized to boost reading volume, apply decoding skills, and offer coherent topic exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, one teacher shares her journey using decodable books with her culturally and linguistically diverse students, documenting new understandings and tensions that she has encountered. Four literacy teacher educators augment the teacher's story by connecting it with the current literature on literacy and decodable books. After reading this article, readers will walk away with a stronger understanding of how and when to use decodable books with beginning readers, as well as concrete ideas and resources to support incorporating decodable books into the early grades literacy curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a form priming experiment with a lexical decision task, we investigated whether the representational structure of lexical tone in lexical memory impacts spoken-word recognition in Mandarin. Target monosyllabic words were preceded by five types of primes: (1) the same real words (/lun4/-/lun4/), (2) real words with only tone contrasts (/lun2/-/lun4/), (3) unrelated real words (/pie3/-/lun4/), (4) pseudowords with only tone contrasts (*/lun3/-/lun4/), and (5) unrelated pseudowords (*/tai3/-/lun4/). We found a facilitation effect in target words with pseudoword primes that share the segmental syllable but contrast in tones (*/lun3/-/lun4/). Moreover, no evident form priming effect was observed in target words primed by real words with only tone contrasts (/lun2/-/lun4/). These results suggest that the recognition of a tone word is influenced by the representational level of tone accessed by the prime word. The distinctive priming patterns between real-word and pseudoword primes are best explained by the connectionist models of tone-word recognition, which assume a hierarchical representation of lexical tone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present SUBTLEX-CY, a new word frequency database created from a 32-million-word corpus of Welsh television subtitles. An experiment comprising a lexical decision task examined SUBTLEX-CY frequency estimates against words with inconsistent frequencies in a much smaller Welsh corpus that is often used by researchers, the Cronfa Electroneg o'r Gymraeg (CEG), and three other Welsh word frequency databases. Words were selected that were classified as low frequency (LF) in SUBTLEX-CY and high frequency (HF) in CEG and compared with words that were classified as medium frequency (MF) in both SUBTLEX-CY and CEG. Reaction time analyses showed that HF words in CEG were responded to more slowly compared to MF words, suggesting that SUBTLEX-CY corpus provides a more reliable estimate of Welsh word frequencies. The new Welsh word frequency database that also includes part-of-speech, contextual diversity, and other lexical information is freely available for research purposes on the Open Science Framework repository at https://osf.io/9gkqm/. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A century of research has provided evidence of limited size sound symbolism in English, that is, certain vowels are non-arbitrarily associated with words denoting small versus large referents (e.g., /i/ as in teensy and /ɑ/ as in tall). In the present study, we investigated more extensive statistical regularities between surface form properties of English words and ratings of their semantic size, that is, form typicality, and its impact on language and memory processing. Our findings provide the first evidence of significant word form typicality for semantic size. In five empirical studies using behavioural megastudy data sets of performance on written and auditory lexical decision, reading aloud, semantic decision, and recognition memory tasks, we show that form typicality for size is a stronger and more consistent predictor of lexical access during word comprehension and production than semantic size, in addition to playing a significant role in verbal memory. The empirical results demonstrate that statistical information about non-arbitrary form-size mappings is accessed automatically during language and verbal memory processing, unlike semantic size that is largely dependent on task contexts that explicitly require participants to access size knowledge. We discuss how a priori knowledge about non-arbitrary form-meaning associations in the lexicon might be incorporated in models of language processing that implement Bayesian statistical inference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by difficulties with all aspects of information acquisition in the written word, including slow and inaccurate word recognition. The neural basis behind DD has not been fully elucidated. Method: The study included 22 typically developing (TD) children, 16 children with isolated spelling disorder (SpD), and 20 children with DD. The cortical thickness, folding index, and mean curvature of Broca's area, including the triangular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFGtriang) and the opercular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus, were assessed to explore the differences of surface morphology among the TD, SpD, and DD groups. Furthermore, the structural covariance network (SCN) of the triangular part of the left inferior frontal gyrus was analyzed to explore the changes of structural connectivity in the SpD and DD groups. Results: The DD group showed higher curvature and cortical folding of the left IFGtriang than the TD group and SpD group. In addition, compared with the TD group and the SpD group, the structural connectivity between the left IFGtriang and the left middle-frontal gyrus and the right mid-orbital frontal gyrus was increased in the DD group, and the structural connectivity between the left IFGtriang and the right precuneus and anterior cingulate was decreased in the DD group. Conclusion: DD had atypical structural connectivity in brain regions related to visual attention, memory and which might impact the information input and integration needed for reading and spelling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual word recognition is commonly rapid and efficient, incorporating top–down predictive processing mechanisms. Neuroimaging studies with face stimuli suggest that repetition suppression (RS) reflects predictive processing at the neural level, as this effect is larger when repetitions are more frequent, that is, more expected. It remains unclear, however, at the temporal level whether and how RS and its modulation by expectation occur in visual word recognition. To address this gap, the present study aimed to investigate the presence and time course of these effects during visual word recognition using EEG. Thirty-six native Cantonese speakers were presented with pairs of Chinese written words and performed a nonlinguistic oddball task. The second word of a pair was either a repetition of the first or a different word (alternation). In repetition blocks, 75% of trials were repetitions and 25% were alternations, whereas the reverse was true in alternation blocks. Topographic analysis of variance of EEG at each time point showed robust RS effects in three time windows (141–227 msec, 242–445 msec, and 467–513 msec) reflecting facilitation of visual word recognition. Importantly, the modulation of RS by expectation was observed at the late rather than early intervals (334–387 msec, 465–550 msec, and 559–632 msec) and more than 100 msec after the first RS effects. In the predictive coding view of RS, only late repetition effects are modulated by expectation, whereas early RS effects may be mediated by lower-level predictions. Taken together, our findings provide the first EEG evidence revealing distinct temporal dynamics of RS effects and repetition probability on RS effects in visual processing of Chinese words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We compared the effectiveness of different encoding techniques across the adult age range. Three hundred participants: 100 younger, 100 middle-aged, and 100 older adults, were asked to encode a set of visually presented concrete and abstract words. Participants were shown target words one at a time, along with prompts (randomly and intermixed, within-subject) to either silently read, read aloud, write, or draw a picture of the target, for a duration of 10-seconds each. On a later free recall test, participants were given 2-minutes to type all the words they could remember from the encoding phase. Across age groups, we showed that drawing, writing, and reading aloud as encoding techniques yielded better memory than silently reading words, with drawing leading to the largest boost. While memory performance did decrease as age increased, it interacted with the encoding technique. Of note, there were no differences in memory performance in middle-aged compared to young adults. Importantly, age differences in memory emerged only when drawing was used as the encoding strategy, in line with previously reported age-related deficits in generating imagery, or integrating it with motoric processes. Despite this, concrete relative to abstract words that were drawn or written during encoding were better retained, regardless of age, suggesting these techniques facilitate formation of age-invariant visuo-spatial representations. Our findings suggest that whether age differences in memory emerge depends on the strategy used at encoding, and the type of information being encoded. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractBackgroundObjectivesMethodsResultsThe indication criteria for cochlear implantation differ considerably across regions.To estimate the effects of different candidacy criteria on the number of cochlear implant (CI) candidates.We analysed a very large clinical audiological database comprising pure-tone thresholds and speech-audiometric data in order to identify CI candidates on the basis of different audiometric candidacy criteria. In particular, we simulated the effects of three different CI candidacy criteria.The bilateral evaluation of CI candidacy has the strongest influence on the number of potential CI candidates. Additionally, the cut-off criteria for middle-ear implants have a large effect on numbers of candidates when air conduction has deteriorated.Conclusions and Significance: Expanding the indication criteria opens up the possibility of improving the accurate identification of individual cases suitable for cochlear-implant provision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifying hotspot words associated with disease symptoms is paramount for disease prevention and diagnosis. In this study, we propose a novel method for hotspot word recognition in disease symptoms, integrating contextual weights and co-occurrence information. First, we establish the MDERank model, which incorporates contextual weights. This model identifies words that align well with comprehensive weights, forming a collection of disease symptom words. Next, we construct a graph network for disease symptom words within each time period. Utilizing the graph attention network model, we incorporate word co-occurrence degree to identify potential hotspot words associated with disease symptoms. We conducted experiments using user-generated posts from the Dingxiangyuan Forum as our data source. The results demonstrate that our proposed method significantly improves the extraction quality of disease symptom words compared to other existing methods. Furthermore, the performance of our constructed recognition model for disease symptom hotspot words surpasses that of alternative models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education is not a privilege; it is a human right. In response, Sustainable Development Goals' "Let Me Learn" stated that nearly two-thirds of 10-year-olds can hardly read nor perceive and simplify a text, which is even more severe in the Philippines, where reading is in English. Thus, this research sought to examine the relationship between English reading performance and the metacognitive strategies of the grade 7 students on their word recognition and reading comprehension through the Philippine Informal Reading Inventory to determine their reading profile. In correlation, the Metacognitive Reading Strategies Questionnaire was used to self-assess reading strategies. The quantitative-descriptive correlational research design revealed no significant relationship between English reading performance and metacognitive strategies. However, a significant but weak relationship was seen between oral reading and pragmatic-behavioral strategies. It signifies that they can read some words but can hardly comprehend the reading text. The study's product mainly suggested that the variables do not correlate, concluding that to move toward equitable educational outcomes for an increase in their reading level, reimagining how to foster and reinforce the students to discover and strengthen their gradual progress in reading must at least be achieved to meet the expectations and specifications throughout the act of reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a vast literature on how speech intelligibility is affected by hearing loss and advanced age, remarkably little is known about the perception of talker-related information in these populations. Here, we assessed the ability of listeners to detect whether a change in talker occurred while listening to and identifying sentence-length sequences of words. Participants were recruited in four groups that differed in their age (younger/older) and hearing status (normal/impaired). The task was conducted in quiet or in a background of same-sex two-talker speech babble. We found that age and hearing loss had detrimental effects on talker change detection, in addition to their expected effects on word recognition. We also found subtle differences in the effects of age and hearing loss for trials in which the talker changed vs trials in which the talker did not change. These findings suggest that part of the difficulty encountered by older listeners, and by listeners with hearing loss, when communicating in group situations, may be due to a reduced ability to identify and discriminate between the participants in the conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans robustly associate spiky shapes to words like "Kiki" and round shapes to words like "Bouba." According to a popular explanation, this is because the mouth assumes an angular shape while speaking "Kiki" and a rounded shape for "Bouba." Alternatively, this effect could reflect more general associations between shape and sound that are not specific to mouth shape or articulatory properties of speech. These possibilities can be distinguished using unpronounceable sounds: The mouth-shape hypothesis predicts no Bouba-Kiki effect for these sounds, whereas the generic shape-sound hypothesis predicts a systematic effect. Here, we show that the Bouba–Kiki effect is present for a variety of unpronounceable sounds ranging from reversed words and real object sounds (n = 45 participants) and even pure tones (n = 28). The effect was strongly correlated with the mean frequency of a sound across both spoken and reversed words. The effect was not systematically predicted by subjective ratings of pronounceability or with mouth aspect ratios measured from video. Thus, the Bouba–Kiki effect is explained using simple shape-sound associations rather than using speech properties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Familiarity with a talker's voice provides numerous benefits to speech perception, including faster responses and improved intelligibility in quiet and in noise. Yet, it is unclear whether familiarity facilitates talker adaptation, or the processing benefit stemming from hearing speech from one talker compared to multiple different talkers. Here, listeners completed a speeded recognition task for words presented in either single-talker or multiple-talker blocks. Talkers were either famous (the last five Presidents of the United States of America) or non-famous (other male politicians of similar ages). Participants either received no information about the talkers before the word recognition task (Experiments 1 and 3) or heard the talkers and saw their names first (Experiment 2). As expected, responses were faster in the single-talker blocks than in the multiple-talker blocks. Famous voices elicited faster responses in Experiment 1, but familiarity effects were extinguished in Experiment 2, possibly by hearing all voices recently before the experiment. When talkers were counterbalanced across single-talker and mixed-talker blocks in Experiment 3, no familiarity effects were observed. Predictions of familiarity facilitating talker adaptation (smaller increase in response times across single- and multiple-talker blocks for famous voices) were not confirmed. Thus, talker familiarity might not augment adaptation to a consistent talker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exercise has beneficial effects on emotional cognitive control for the majority of the population. However, the impact of exercise on cognitive processes in perimenopausal women remains unclear. Therefore, this study investigated the effect of aerobic exercise on the cognitive processes of perimenopausal women using an emotional Stroop task (EST). Method: A quasi-experimental pilot study was conducted involving 14 perimenopausal women (Peri-MG) and 13 healthy young women (YG) who completed an EST before and after an aerobic cycling exercise. Mixed-effects models for repeated measures were used to analyze reaction times (RTs) and error rates (ERs) during emotional word processing (positive, negative, and neutral) for both groups. Results: Compared with the YG, the Peri-MG showed significantly shortened RTs for positive and negative emotions (p < 0.05) post-exercise, but not for neutral words. In addition, the Peri-MG exhibited significantly increased ERs for negative words at baseline compared with the YG (p < 0.05), but this difference was not observed during the post-exercise test. Conclusion: The findings suggest that aerobic exercise can enhance executive control performance in perimenopausal women. The Peri-MG exhibited marked behavioral plasticity in the form of reduced bias to salient cues that were significantly more sensitive to alterations due to exercise. This new evidence enhances the understanding of emotional vulnerability and beneficial susceptibility to exercise in perimenopausal women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The objectives were to present the real-time estimated values of cochlear implant (CI) electrode insertion speed (IS) during intraoperative sessions using the Cochlear Nucleus SmartNav System to assess whether this measure affected CI outcomes and to determine whether real-time feedback assists expert surgeons in achieving slow insertion. Methods: The IS was measured in 52 consecutive patients (65 implanted ears) using the CI632 electrode. The IS values were analyzed in relation to procedure repetition over time, NRT ratio, and CI audiological outcomes. Results: The average IS was 0.64 mm/s (SD = 0.24); minimum and maximum values were 0.23 and 1.24 mm/s, respectively. The IS significantly decreased with each array insertion by the operator (p = 0.006), and the mean decreased by 24% between the first and last third of procedures; however, this reduction fell within the error range of SmartNav for IS (+/−0.48 mm/s). No correlation was found between IS and the NRT ratio (p = 0.51), pure-tone audiometry (PTA) at CI activation (p = 0.506), and PTA (p = 0.94) or word recognition score (p = 0.231) at last evaluation. Conclusions: The estimated IS reported by SmartNav did not result in a clinically significant reduction in insertion speed or an improvement in CI hearing outcomes. Real-time feedback of IS could potentially be used for training, but its effectiveness requires confirmation through additional studies and more accurate tools. Implementation of IS assessment in clinical practice will enable comparisons between measurement techniques and between manual and robot-assisted insertions. This will help define the optimal IS range to achieve better cochlear implant (CI) outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborative recall synchronizes downstream individual retrieval processes, giving rise to collective organization. However, little is known about whether particular stimulus features (e.g., semantic relatedness) are necessary for constructing collective organization and how group dynamics (e.g., reconfiguration) moderates it. We leveraged novel quantitative measures and a rich dataset reported in recent articles to address, (a) whether collective organization emerges even for semantically unrelated material and (b) how group reconfiguration—changing partners from one recall to the next—influences collective organization. Participants studied unrelated words and completed three consecutive recalls in one of three conditions: Always recalling individually (III), collaborating with the same partners twice before recalling alone (CCI), or collaborating with different group members during two initial recalls, before recalling alone (CRI). Collective organization increased significantly following any collaboration (CCI or CRI), relative to "groups" who never collaborated (III). Interestingly, collaborating repeatedly with the same partners (CCI) did not increase collective organization compared to reconfigured groups, irrespective of the reference group structure (from Recall 1 or 2). Individuals, however, did tend to base their final individual retrieval on the most recent group recall. We discuss how the fundamental processes that underlie dynamic social interactions align the cognitive processes of many, laying the foundation for other collective phenomena, including shared biases, attitudes, and beliefs. Collaborative recall synchronizes downstream individual retrieval processes, giving rise to collective organization. However, little is known about whether particular stimulus features (e.g., semantic relatedness) are necessary for constructing collective organization and how group dynamics (e.g., reconfiguration) moderates it. We find that, a) collective organization emerges even when recalling unrelated words, demonstrating our propensity for organizing information in memory and aligning it with others, and b) any collaborative recall, whether recalling repeatedly with the same or with varying conversational partners, contributes to the emergence of collective retrieval organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and objectives: Current research suggests that motor articulatory representations are relevant for optimal speech processing under difficult circumstances. The challenging situation of a second language (L2) listener mimics this sub-optimal condition; therefore, activation of motor brain regions to support L2 processing is expected. This study aimed to investigate if the motor system associated with speech articulators exerts an influence on processing bilingual acoustic inputs. Methodology: Thirty proficient bilinguals performed twice on a word-to-picture matching task: (1) while producing constant contraction of the orbicularis oris (OO) muscle interfering with the articulator's movement and (2) while producing constant contraction of the first dorsal interosseus (index finger) muscle. Data and analysis: Accuracy and reaction times (RTs) were collected from the bilingual task during the experimental and control conditions. Two-way repeated measures analyses of variance were conducted to assess if constant contraction of articulators yielded a significant effect on word recognition in L1 and L2. Findings: Word recognition was significantly slower in L2 compared with the native language (L1) during articulator contraction. Task accuracy in L1 was marginally better during the finger muscle contraction compared with OO muscle contraction, and no difference in accuracy was found in L2. An interesting distinct speed-accuracy trade-off strategy for L1 and L2 was observed. The findings support the hypothesis of a motor system facilitatory effect on processing acoustic inputs in bilinguals. Originality: The role of motor components in language processing has been studied in challenging linguistic environments, but little has been done to identify its role in L2 processing. This study used an innovative behavioral strategy to interfere with articulatory muscles during word recognition. Significance: Our results provide evidence of motor system processing support to L2 word recognition. In addition, a bilingual tendency to sacrifice speed for accuracy in L2 compared with L1 is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and purpose: Susac syndrome (SuS) is a rare, autoimmune, neurological disease characterized by a clinical triad of branch retinal artery occlusion, sensorineural hearing loss and encephalopathy. Neuropsychological functioning in SuS is little researched and the prevalence, nature, and evolution over time of cognitive deficits in SuS remain unclear. This study aimed to better understand the long‐term neuropsychological outcomes of patients with SuS. Methods: Thirteen patients with SuS (mean [SD] age 39.5 [11.1] years) were enrolled at the Ghent University Hospital by their treating neurologist. The cognitive functioning and emotional well‐being of each patient was evaluated by means of a thorough neuropsychological test battery at baseline and after 2 years. Follow‐up testing after 2 years was performed in 11 patients (mean [SD] age 42.2 [11.5] years). Results: Patients showed normal neuropsychological test results at a group level, both at baseline and follow‐up testing. Significant improvements over time were found for information processing speed, verbal recognition, and semantic and phonological fluency. Individual test results showed interindividual variability at baseline, with most impairments being in attention, executive functioning and language, which improved after a 2‐year period. In addition, patients reported significantly lower mental and physical well‐being, both at baseline and follow‐up testing. Conclusions: Our results suggest that neuropsychological dysfunction in SuS is limited at a group level and improves over time. Nonetheless, individual test results reveal interindividual variability, making cognitive screening essential. Furthermore, a high psycho‐emotional burden of the disease was reported, for which screening and follow‐up are necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the extensive research on bilingual development, our understanding of how lexical competition unfolds in the bilingual mind remains limited. Previous studies have predominantly focused on crosslinguistic competition, neglecting the examination of the competition process within each language and the influence of diverse bilingual experiences, such as first language attriters, heritage speakers, or sequential bilinguals. Consequently, there is a critical gap in our knowledge regarding how bilinguals navigate and resolve competition dynamics during spoken word recognition in the context of language attrition. We compare the within-L1 and within-L2 competition mechanisms of Spanish-English attriters (N = 65) with two monolingual control groups (Spanish and English speakers). Participants completed two visual world tasks with manipulation of onset/rhyme overlap. Results indicate a contrast between the competition mechanisms exhibited by the L1 monolingual group and the Spanish attriters during L1 spoken word recognition. Our findings highlight the role of bilingual experiences in modulating L1 competition dynamics, shedding light on the complex relationship between bilingualism and lexical competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior work has implicated several neurocognitive domains, including memory, in patients with a history of prior suicide attempt. The current study evaluated whether a delayed recognition test could enhance prospective prediction of near-term suicide outcomes in a sample of patients at high-risk for suicide. 132 Veterans at high-risk for suicide completed a computer-based recognition memory test including semantically-related and -unrelated words. Outcomes were coded as actual suicide attempt (ASA), other suicide-related event (OtherSE) such as aborted/interrupted attempt or preparatory behavior, or neither (noSE), within 90 days after testing. Reduced performance was a significant predictor of upcoming ASA, but not OtherSE, after controlling for standard clinical variables such as current suicidal ideation and history of prior suicide attempt. However, compared to the noSE reference group, the OtherSE group showed a reduction in the expected benefit of semantic relatedness in recognizing familiar words. A computational model, the drift diffusion model (DDM), to explore latent cognitive processes, revealed the OtherSE group had decreased decisional efficiency for semantically-related compared to semantically-unrelated familiar words. This study was a secondary analysis of an existing dataset, involving participants in a treatment trial, and requires replication; ~10 % of the sample was excluded from analysis due to failure to master the practice tasks and/or apparent noncompliance. Impairments in recognition memory may be associated with near-term risk for suicide attempt, and may provide a tool to improve prediction of when at-risk individuals may be transitioning into a period of heightened risk for suicide attempt. • Memory deficits form part of the clinical profile of suicidality. • Cognitive changes may prospectively predict suicide attempt in at-risk individuals. • Poor recognition memory predicted suicide attempt (SA) within next 90 days. • The prediction remained significant after controlling for other clinical variables. • Computational model suggested latent cognitive processes in those with upcoming SA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To investigate the word recognition effects of the use of all-uppercase (e.g., VALENCIA) or titled-case (e.g., Valencia) for city names in traffic signs, controlling for word size, and comparing stationary and dynamic viewing situations. Background: Prior studies provide mixed evidence regarding the effects of word case on the recognition of city names in traffic signs. Moreover, the evidence on the potential impact of visual motion on these effects is scarce. Method: We carried out an experimental study using simulated traffic signs. The task was to indicate, for each sign, whether it contained a given city name or not (word search task, 50% positive trials). Visual motion of signs was manipulated as a between-participants factor: stationary (the sign was still) versus dynamic (the sign expanded as if the participant was approaching to it). Word case was manipulated as a within-participants factor: all-uppercase versus two titled-case conditions varying in font size: width-matched titled-case and point size-matched titled-case. Results: In both the stationary and dynamic conditions, all-uppercase resulted in more incorrect responses and slower latencies than width-matched titled-case. When compared to point size-matched titled-case, all-uppercase produced slower correct responses in the stationary condition, whereas faster in the dynamic condition. Conclusion: Other factors being equal, all-uppercase city names will be recognized worse than their titled-case versions in traffic signs, both in stationary and dynamic situations. Application: Results in the current experimental study would be of interest in the design of traffic signs and other circumstances in which text is presented in motion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the temporal profile of spatial frequency processing in a word reading task in 16 normal adult readers. They had to report the word presented in a 200 ms display using a four-alternative forced-choice task (4AFC). The stimuli were made of an additive combination of the signal (i.e. the target word) and of a visual white noise patch wherein the signal-to-noise ratio varied randomly across stimulus duration. Four spatial frequency conditions were defined for the signal component of the stimulus (bandpass Butterworth filters with center frequencies of 1.2, 2.4, 4.8 and 9.6 cycles per degree). In contrast to the coarse-to-fine theory of visual recognition, the results show that the highest spatial frequency range dominates early processing, with a shift toward lower spatial frequencies at later points during stimulus exposure. This pattern interacted in a complex way with the temporal frequency content of signal-to-noise oscillations. The outcome of individual data patterns classification by a machine learning algorithm according to the corresponding spatial frequency band further shows that the most salient spatial frequency signature is obtained when the time dimension within data patterns is recoded into its Fourier transform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Acquiring solid reading skills is significant in education as it is the cornerstone for academic success and lifelong learning. This sequential explanatory mixed-methods study investigates the effectiveness of a contextualized Marungko approach-based supplementary reading material in improving the reading performance of Grade 1 pupils. In the pre-experimental phase the Early Grade Reading Assessment (EGRA) tool was utilized to measure the reading skills of the twenty four (24) Grade 1 pupils in terms of identifying letter sounds, identifying initial sounds, reading familiar words, reading invented words, and reading oral passages before and after the implementation of the contextualized Marungko approach-based supplementary reading material. Findings revealed a significant improvement in the early reading skills of Grade 1 pupils after using the supplementary reading material. This indicated that the reading material effectively enhanced the Grade 1 pupils' reading performance. The responses of the five (5) participants in the qualitative phase, which were examined following Braun and Clark (2013) analysis, yielded two (2) themes. It is recommended that educational institutions and policymakers should consider incorporating the Marungko Approach into their reading instruction programs to enhance alphabet knowledge, phonemic awareness, word recognition, decoding, and oral reading fluency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning to read and write is crucial in child's development during entering formal schooling in grade one. These skills are identified to as language and literacy skills. It also predicts the child's success later in school as well as in life. Reading and writing were both encompassed in early language literacy which are the foundation skills of a child and it develops as the child grows. This study aimed to determine the effects of the reading intervention strategies used by grade one teachers on the reading performance of grade one pupils in terms of word recognition, reading speed and reading comprehension. The participants in this study were the 23 grade one teachers coming from the 11 schools of the San Antonio District. Findings of the study came up with the following conclusions: Typical teachers of Grade I in San Antonio always use reading intervention strategies in terms of oral language, alphabet knowledge and word recognition, and often use strategies for phonological awareness, fluency and comprehension. The teachers used various activities exclusively for word recognition, fluency and reading comprehension. The learners have a high level of word recognition skills, are fast readers and with an instructional level of comprehension. A positive linear relationship exists between the reading intervention strategies and the learners' level of reading skills. After the investigation on the relationship between the reading intervention strategies and learner's reading skills, the researcher recommends the following actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on orthographic consistency in English words has selectively identified different sub-syllabic units in isolation (grapheme, onset, vowel, coda, rime), yet there is no comprehensive assessment of how these measures affect word identification when taken together. To study which aspects of consistency are more psychologically relevant, we investigated their independent and composite effects on human reading behavior using large-scale databases. Study 1 found effects on adults' naming responses of both feedforward consistency (orthography to phonology) and feedback consistency (phonology to orthography). Study 2 found feedback but no feedforward consistency effects on visual and auditory lexical decision tasks, with the best predictor being a composite measure of consistency across grapheme, rime, OVC, and word-initial letter-phoneme. In Study 3, we explicitly modeled the reading process with forward and backward flow in a bidirectionally connected neural network. The model captured latent dimensions of quasi-regular mapping that explain additional variance in human reading and spelling behavior, compared to the established measures. Together, the results suggest interactive activation between phonological and orthographic word representations. They also validate the role of computational analyses of language to better understand how print maps to sound, and what properties of natural language affect reading complexity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lip reading, the art of deciphering spoken words from the visual cues of lip movements, has garnered significant interest for its potential applications in diverse fields, including assistive technologies, human–computer interaction, and security systems. With the rapid advancements in technology and the increasing emphasis on non-verbal communication methods, the significance of lip reading has expanded beyond its traditional boundaries. These technological advancements have led to the generation of large-scale and complex datasets, necessitating the use of cutting-edge deep learning tools that are adept at handling such intricacies. In this study, we propose an innovative approach combining 3D Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) networks to tackle the challenging task of word recognition from lip movements. Our research leverages a meticulously curated dataset, named MobLip, encompassing various speech patterns, speakers, and environmental conditions. The synergy between the spatial information extracted by 3D CNNs and the temporal dynamics captured by LSTMs yields impressive results, achieving an accuracy rate of up to 87.5%, showcasing robustness to lighting variations and speaker diversity. Comparative experiments demonstrate our model's superiority over existing lip-reading approaches, underlining its potential for real-world deployment. Furthermore, we discuss ethical considerations and propose avenues for future research, such as multimodal integration with audio data and expanded language support. In conclusion, our 3D CNN-LSTM architecture presents a promising solution to the complex problem of word recognition from lip movements, contributing to the advancement of communication technology and opening doors to innovative applications in an increasingly visual world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computational models of infant word‐finding typically operate over transcriptions of infant‐directed speech corpora. It is now possible to test models of word segmentation on speech materials, rather than transcriptions of speech. We propose that such modeling efforts be conducted over the speech of the experimental stimuli used in studies measuring infants' capacity for learning from spoken sentences. Correspondence with infant outcomes in such experiments is an appropriate benchmark for models of infants. We demonstrate such an analysis by applying the DP‐Parser model of Algayres and colleagues to auditory stimuli used in infant psycholinguistic experiments by Pelucchi and colleagues. The DP‐Parser model takes speech as input, and creates multiple overlapping embeddings from each utterance. Prospective words are identified as clusters of similar embedded segments. This allows segmentation of each utterance into possible words, using a dynamic programming method that maximizes the frequency of constituent segments. We show that DP‐Parse mimics American English learners' performance in extracting words from Italian sentences, favoring the segmentation of words with high syllabic transitional probability. This kind of computational analysis over actual stimuli from infant experiments may be helpful in tuning future models to match human performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Measuring the impact of spatial attention on signal detection in damaged parts of the visual field can be a useful tool for eye care practitioners. Studies on letter perception have shown that glaucoma exacerbates difficulties to detect a target within flankers (crowding) in parafoveal vision. A target can be missed because it is not seen or because attention was not focused at that location. This prospective study evaluates the contribution of spatial pre-cueing on target detection. Fifteen patients and 15 age-matched controls were presented with letters displayed for 200 ms. Participants were asked to identify the orientation of the target letter T in two conditions: an isolated letter (uncrowded condition) and a letter with two flankers (crowded condition). The spacing between target and flankers was manipulated. The stimuli were randomly displayed at the fovea and at the parafovea at 5° left or right of fixation. A spatial cue preceded the stimuli in 50% of the trials. When present, the cue always signalled the correct location of the target. Pre-cueing the spatial location of the target significantly improved performance for both foveal and parafoveal presentations in patients but not in controls who were at ceiling level. Unlike controls, patients exhibited an effect of crowding at the fovea with a higher accuracy for the isolated target than for the target flanked by two letters with no spacing between the elements. Higher susceptibility to central crowding supports data showing abnormal foveal vision in glaucoma. Exogenous orienting of attention facilitates perception in parts of the visual field with reduced sensitivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has shown that phonology influences the visual perception of a word's letters. However, the influence of prosody, including word stress, on grapheme perception in polysyllabic words is poorly investigated. The present study addresses this issue with a letter search task. Participants searched for vowel letters (Experiment 1) and consonant letters (Experiment 2) in stressed and unstressed syllables of bisyllabic words. Results reveal facilitated vowel letter detection in stressed syllables compared with unstressed syllables, indicating that prosodic information affects visual letter perception. Moreover, an analysis of the response time distribution revealed that the effect was present even for the fastest decisions but increased for slower response times. However, no systematic stress effect emerged for consonants. We discuss possible sources and dynamics of the observed pattern and the importance to accommodate feedback processes of prosody on letter perception in models of polysyllabic word reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although it is well established that the visual complexity of a written word can influence processing, it is far less clear from a cross-script perspective, whether the overall visual complexity of the entire written lexicon also affects word recognition. This question can be answered with the data in megastudy of lexical decision in Chinese (MELD-CH), which was developed with over 800 participants responding to 12,587 simplified and traditional Chinese words. The results showed that lexical decision was slower but more accurate in simplified Chinese, which has about 22.5% less strokes, than traditional Chinese. This pattern could not be explained by a speed–accuracy trade-off. Moderate correlations were found in response times and error rates between the two scripts, indicating considerable overlap in processing despite the script difference. In addition, (generalised) linear mixed-effects modelling was used to examine whether the simplified and traditional Chinese groups differed in sensitivity towards linguistic variables. The results showed that the effects of word frequency, word length, and number of strokes were stronger in recognising simplified Chinese words, whereas the effects of number of words formed and number of meanings of the constituent characters were stronger in traditional Chinese. These results suggested that the visual-perceptual processing demands of simplified Chinese might force readers to focus more on local properties of the words, making them less sensitive to global properties that are defined over the entire lexicon. Finally, limitations and alternative explanations of the results were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic made face masks part of daily life. While masks protect against the virus, it is important to understand the impact masks have on listeners' recognition of spoken words. We examined spoken word recognition under three different mask conditions (no mask; cloth mask; Kn95 mask) and in both easy (low density, high phonotactic probability) and hard (high density, low phonotactic probability) words in a lexical decision task. In Experiment 1, participants heard all words and nonwords under all three mask conditions. In Experiment 2, participants heard each word and nonword only once under one of the mask conditions. The reaction time and accuracy results were consistent between Experiments 1 and 2. The pattern of results was such that the no mask condition produced the fastest and most accurate responses followed by the Kn95 mask condition and the cloth mask condition, respectively. Furthermore, there was a trend towards a speed-accuracy trade-off with Word Type. Easy words produced faster but less accurate responses relative to hard words. The finding that cloth masks had a more detrimental impact on spoken word recognition than Kn95 masks is consistent with previous research, and the current results further demonstrate that this effect extends to individual word recognition tasks with only audio presentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: The fitting of cochlear implants (CI) is an established treatment, even in cases with considerable residual hearing but insufficient speech perception. The aim of this study was to evaluate a prediction model for speech in quiet and to provide reference data and a predictive model for postoperative speech perception in noise (SPiN) after CI provision. (2) Methods: CI candidates with substantial residual hearing (either in hearing threshold or in word recognition scores) were included in a retrospective analysis (n = 87). Speech perception scores in quiet 12 months post-surgery were compared with the predicted scores. A generalized linear model was fitted to speech reception thresholds (SRTs) after CI fitting to identify predictive variables for SPiN. (3) Results: About two-thirds of the recipients achieved the expected outcome in quiet or were better than expected. The mean absolute error of the prediction was 13.5 percentage points. Age at implantation was the only predictive factor for SPiN showing a significant correlation (r = 0.354; p = 0.007). (4) Conclusions: Outcome prediction accuracy for speech in quiet was comparable to previous studies. For CI recipients in the included study population, the SPiN outcome could be predicted only based on the factor age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient assistive speech technology is essential for persons with cognitive disorders to improve their standard of life. Various kinds of cognitive disorders affect the speech articulation. Disordered Speech Recognition (DSR) can be used for rehabilitation and gain much importance as the disordered speakers population keeps increasing in recent years. The speech utterance is commonly represented in the form of spectrogram. Since the spectrograms are noisy and incomplete, the corresponding spectrograms need to be enhanced. We propose an approach that explores Denoising Convolutional Autoencoder (DCAE) to enhance the spectrograms of disordered speech utterances which are then utilized to train CNN to recognize the disordered words. Evaluation of proposed approach is carried out using the 20 words (acoustically similar word classes) dataset and 50 words dataset of Impaired speech corpus in Tamil and 100 common words dataset of UA-Speech database. Significantly better performance is achieved by proposed approach than HMM, DNN-HMM, LFMMI and CNN without enhancement. The spectrogram enhancement using DCAE helps to obtain better discrimination among overlapping disordered word classes and achieves a maximum Word Recognition Accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The cochlear implant (CI) is an established treatment option for patients with inadequate speech understanding and insufficient aided scores. Nevertheless, reliable predictive models and specific therapy goals regarding achievable speech understanding are still lacking. Method: In this retrospective study, 601 cases of CI fittings between 2005 and 2021 at the University Medical Center Freiburg were analyzed. We investigated the preoperative unaided maximum word recognition score (mWRS) as a minimum predictor for post-interventional scores at 65 dB SPL, WRS65(CI). The WRS65(CI) was compared with the preoperative-aided WRS, and a previously published prediction model for the WRS65(CI) was reviewed. Furthermore, the effect of duration of hearing loss, duration of HA fitting, and etiology on WRS65(CI) were investigated. Results: In 95.5% of the cases, a significant improvement in word recognition was observed after CI. WRS65(CI) achieved or exceeded mWRS in 97% of cases. Etiology had a significant impact on WRS65(CI). The predicted score was missed by more than 20 percentage points in 12.8% of cases. Discussion: Our results confirmed the minimum prediction via mWRS. A more precise prediction of the expected WRS65(CI) is possible. The etiology of hearing loss should be considered in the indication and postoperative care to achieve optimal results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efficient word recognition is important to facilitate reading comprehension. Two important factors influence word recognition—word frequency (WF) and contextual diversity (CD)—but studies have not reached consistent conclusions on their role. Based on previous studies, the present study strictly controlled the anticipation of sentence context on target words. In the context of the semantic incongruence of Chinese sentences—that is, when the context is equivalent and low in anticipation of the target noun—CD effects were found on late processing indicators of the eye movement data of parafoveal words, and the CD feature of parafoveal words led to a significant parafoveal‐on‐foveal effect. However, none of these results were found in the semantically reasonable (semantic congruence) context. The results suggested that high CD words are better at adapting to unexposed or learned contexts, which was not the case for high WF words. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When reading, the visual system is confronted with many words simultaneously. How much of that information can a reader process at once? Previous studies demonstrated that low-level visual features of multiple words are processed in parallel, but lexical attributes are processed serially, for one word at a time. This implies that an internal bottleneck lies somewhere between early visual and lexical analysis. We used a dual-task behavioral paradigm to investigate whether this bottleneck lies at the stage of letter recognition or phonological decoding. On each trial, two letter strings were flashed briefly, one above and one below fixation, and then masked. In the letter identification experiment, participants indicated whether a vowel was present in a particular letter string. In the phonological decoding experiment, participants indicated whether the letter string was pronounceable. We compared accuracy in a focused attention condition, in which participants judged only one of the two strings, with accuracy in a divided attention condition, in which participants judged both strings independently. In both experiments, the cost of dividing attention was so large that it supported a serial model: participants were able to process only one letter string per trial. Furthermore, we found a stimulus processing trade-off that is characteristic of serial processing: When participants judged one string correctly, they were less likely to judge the other string correctly. Therefore, the bottleneck that constrains word recognition under these conditions arises at a sub-lexical level, perhaps due to a limit on the efficiency of letter recognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pseudowords are letter strings that look like words but are not words. They are used in psycholinguistic research, particularly in tasks such as lexical decision. In this context, it is essential that the pseudowords respect the orthographic statistics of the target language. Pseudowords that violate them would be too easy to reject in a lexical decision and would not enforce word recognition on real words. We propose a new pseudoword generator, UniPseudo, using an algorithm based on Markov chains of orthographic n-grams. It generates pseudowords from a customizable database, which allows one to control the characteristics of the items. It can produce pseudowords in any language, in orthographic or phonological form. It is possible to generate pseudowords with specific characteristics, such as frequency of letters, bigrams, trigrams, or quadrigrams, number of syllables, frequency of biphones, and number of morphemes. Thus, from a list of words composed of verbs, nouns, adjectives, or adverbs, UniPseudo can create pseudowords resembling verbs, nouns, adjectives, or adverbs in any language using an alphabetic or syllabic system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reading comprehension is a vital cognitive skill that individuals use throughout their lives. The neurodevelopment of reading comprehension across the lifespan, however, remains underresearched. Furthermore, factors such as maturation and experience significantly influence functional brain development. Given the complexity of reading comprehension, which incorporates lower-level word reading process and higher-level semantic integration process, our study aims to investigate how age and reading experience influence the neurobiology underpinning these two processes across the lifespan. fMRI data of 158 participants aged from 7 to 77 years were collected during a passive word viewing task and a sentence comprehension task to engage the lower- and higher-level processes, respectively. We found that the neurodevelopment of the lower-level process was primarily influenced by age, showing increased activation and connectivity with age in parieto-occipital and middle/inferior frontal lobes related to morphological-semantic mapping while decreased activation in the temporoparietal regions linked to phonological processing. However, the brain function of the higher-level process was primarily influenced by reading experience, exhibiting a greater reliance on the frontotemporal semantic network with enhanced sentence-level reading performance. Furthermore, reading experience did not significantly affect the brain function of children, but had a positive effect on young adults in the lower-level process and on middle-aged and older adults in the higher-level process. These findings indicate that the brain function for lower- and higher-level processes of reading comprehension is differently affected by maturation and reading experience, and the experience effect is contingent on age regarding the two processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]