The development of lexical competition in written- and spoken-word recognition

Abstract

Efficient word recognition depends on the ability to overcome competition from overlapping words. The nature of the overlap depends on the input modality: spoken words have temporal overlap from other words that share phonemes in the same positions, whereas written words have spatial overlap from other words with letters in the same places. It is unclear how these differences in input format affect the ability to recognise a word and the types of competitors that become active while doing so. This study investigates word recognition in both modalities in children between 7 and 15. Children complete a visual-world paradigm eye-tracking task that measures competition from words with several types of overlap, using identical word lists between modalities. Results showed correlated developmental changes in the speed of target recognition in both modalities. In addition, developmental changes were seen in the efficiency of competitor suppression for some competitor types in the spoken modality. These data reveal some developmental continuity in the process of word recognition independent of modality but also some instances of independence in how competitors are activated. Stimuli, data, and analyses from this project are available at: https://osf.io/eav72.

Keywords: Development; spoken word recognition; visual word recognition; visual world paradigm; word recognition.

Figure 1.

Accuracy during the VWP study by age and modality. This includes only participants who surpassed the 85% accuracy threshold for the written trials. VWP: Visual World Paradigm.

Figure 2.

The time course of looks to targets and different competitor types in each modality averaged across all age groups. (a) Spoken trials; (b) Written trials.

Figure 3.

Target fixations. (a) Mean fixations to the target across time by age group in the spoken modality, averaged across all competitor types. (b) Mean fixations to the target across time by age group in the written modality, averaged across all competitor types. (c) Mean maximum curvefit parameters by age and modality. (d) Mean of the timing index by age and modality.

Figure 4.

The proportion of looks to each object type across time for each age group and each modality. Note that the figure is capped at a proportion of 0.3; targets rapidly exceed this. (a) Young; Spoken. (b) Middle; Spoken. (c) Old; Spoken. (d) Young; Written. (e) Middle; Written. (f) Old; Written.

Figure 5.

Competitor effects for each competitor type in each modality. These figures plot the difference in looks to the competitor object and looks to the mean of the unrelated objects. (a) The time course of the competitor effect for the spoken modality. (b) The time course of the competitor effect for the written modality. (c) The average competitor effect from 200 to 1000 ms for the spoken modality. (d) The average competitor effect from 200 to 1000 ms for the written modality.

Figure 6.

Average competitor effect across time for cohort trials by age. (a) Cohorts in spoken trials. (b) Rhymes in spoken trials. (c) Cohorts in written trials. (d) Rhymes in written trials.

Figure 7.

Visual-only VWP experiment data. (a) Time course of target looks by age. (b) Mean of the maximum curvefit parameters by age. (c) Mean of the timing curvefit parameters by age. Error bars display the standard error of the mean. (d) Competitor effect across time. (e) Mean competitor effect from 200–1000 msec post-stimulus onset.VWP: Visual world paradigm.

Figure 8.

Correlations of competitor effects of items between modalities.