Individual variability in the semantic processing of English compound words

Abstract

Semantic transparency effects during compound word recognition provide critical insight into the organization of semantic knowledge and the nature of semantic processing. The past 25 years of psycholinguistic research on compound semantic transparency has produced discrepant effects, leaving the existence and nature of its influence unresolved. In the present study, we examined the influence of semantic transparency and individual reading experience on eye-movement behavior during sentence reading. Eye-movement data were collected from 138 non-college-bound 16- to 26-year-old speakers of English in a sentence-reading task representing a total of 455 different compound words. Measures of individual differences in reading experience were collected from the same participants and consisted of standardized assessments of exposure to printed materials, vocabulary size, and word recognition skill. Statistical analyses revealed facilitatory effects of both Modifier-Compound and Head-Compound transparency throughout the eye-movement record. Moreover, the study reports interactions between Head-Compound transparency and measures of reading experience. Readers with a small amount exposure to printed materials and a limited vocabulary size exhibited slower processing in late eye-movement measures when reading highly transparent compounds relative to opaque compounds. The opposite effect was observed for readers with a relatively large amount of exposure to printed materials and a relatively larger vocabulary size, such that highly transparent compounds facilitated lexical processing. To account for the results, the authors posit a trade-off between 2 cognitive mechanisms, which is modulated by individual reading experience; that is, the benefit of semantic coactivation of closely related concepts, and the cost of discriminating between those concepts. (PsycINFO Database Record

Figure 1

Hypothetical processing patterns for the interactive effect of semantic transparency (x axis) and individual reading experience on compound word recognition effort (y axis). Individual panels represent behavioral outcomes predicted under the semantic boost account (Panel A), the NDR theory (B), or the potential trade-off between the semantic boost account and the NDR hypothesis (C–E). The lines plot the predicted effect of semantic transparency across the range of individual language experience, where quintiles of a metric of language skill are shown as the solid line (lowest quintile), and the dashed, dotted, dotdash and longdash (top quintile) lines respectively.

Figure 2

Density plots of the distribution of results of the Author (left) and Magazine (right) Recognition Tests split by two samples; a university student population (n = 173) and a non-college bound adult population (n = 138).

Figure 3

Interaction effects between semantic transparency and reading experience. Left panel: partial effects of Head-Compound Semantic Transparency Rating (scaled) modulated by Print Exposure, on regression-in probability. Right panel: partial effects of Head-Compound Semantic Transparency Rating (scaled) modulated by Print Exposure on total viewing time. Scaled values of the Print Exposure are provided in the right margin and report, where available, the 10^th (solid line), 30^th (dashed line), 50^th (dotted line), 70^th (dotdash line) and 90^th (longdash line) percentiles of each test score.