Chapter 6 Answers by Anmar Ahmed

Q1-Are the eye movements important for recognizing and understanding words or
printed language ? Briefly state this importance.
Eye have different movements and these movements searched scientifically by using
different techniques . The techniques are concerned with the horizontal and vertical
movements of the eyes such as limbus tracking and Purkinje system . These
techniques defined sub eyes movements that are of utmost importance in knowing and
understanding words :
1 - The first movement is called saccades which are the eyes travel in jumps . It
contributed by very little information that is taken in while the eye is moving in a
saccade.
2 - The second movement is called fixations which occurs according to Rayner in
duration, with intervals of around 200 to 250 ms when the eye is still fixed . Fixation
importance is differ from saccades movement because its movement provides
information that differs from one reader to another :
A - The information that can be taken in within a fixation is limited—15 characters to
the right and only 3–4 to the left in English speakers (McConkie & Rayner, 1976;
Rayner, Well, & Pollatsek, 1980).
B - Skilled readers may be able to take in more information in one fixation—that is,
they have a larger span—than less skilled readers (Martin, 2004). Information from
the more distal regions of the span is used to guide future eye movements.
3 - Eyes movement provides differnt parts in the visual fields . The information that
are provided are differ from one part to another :
A - The fovea is the most sensitive part of the visual field, and corresponds to the
central seven characters or so of average-size text. We extract most of the meaning of
what we read from the foveal region.
B - Parafovea region is also important because reading was possible from this region
C - These regions are formed together the reading region .
4 - The third movement is regressions and this helps us when we need to check
previous material after making a mistake . The study of these regressive eye
movements provides important information about how we disambiguate ambiguous
material.
Q2-There are different factors that make the recognition of a word easier or
hader.Mention these factors, then explain each one briefly.
1 . Interfering with identification
2 . Frequency, familiarity, and age-of-acquisition
3 . Word length
4 . Neighborhood effects
5 . Word or nonwords?
6 . Repetition priming
7 . Form-based priming
8 . Semantic priming
9 . Other factors that affect word recognition
1 . Interfering with identification : This factor makes the recognition of the word
harder and the scientific approach has been suggested a number of techniques and
systems to reduce its effects :
A - We can slow down word identification by making it harder to recognize the
stimulus. One way of doing this is by degrading its physical appearance .
B - Presenting another stimulus immediately after the target interferes with the
recognition process. This is called backwards masking . It is divided into energy
masking and pattern masking as the figure below :

2 . Frequency, familiarity, and age-of-acquisition :

A - The frequency of a word is a very important factor in word recognition.
Commonly used words are easier to recognize and are responded to more quickly than
less commonly used words.
B - Gernsbacher (1984) pointed out that corpora of printed word frequencies are only
an approximation to experiential familiarity. “mumble,” “giggle,” and “drowsy”) as
more familiar than others of similar frequency (such as “cohere,” “rend,” and “char”).
C - Frequency is particularly entangled with age of- acquisition (AOA). The age-of-
acquisition of a word is the age at which you first learn it (Carroll & White, 1973a;
Gilhooly, 1984). On the whole, children learn more common words first. Words that
are learned early in life are named more quickly and more accurately than ones
learned late, across a range of tasks including object naming, word naming, and
lexical decision .
3 . Word length : Word length can also effect on the recognition of the words because:
A . long words were harder to identify than short words.
B . Length effects in lexical decision when the words and nonwords were matched for
length and the regularity of their pronunciation.
C . It seems that the number of letters in a word has little effect for short words, but
has some effect on words between 5 and 12 letters long. Furthermore, word length
effects in naming words probably reflect the larger number of similar words with
similar pronunciations found for shorter words.
4 . Neighborhood effects : This factor occurs due to many reasons :
A . Some words have a large number of other words that look like them (e.g., “mine”
has “pine,” “line,” “mane,” among others), which are called neighbors whereas other
words of similar frequency have few that look like them .
B - Neighborhood size affects visual word recognition, making words with a high N
( neighborhood ) easy to recognize when other factors have been controlled for .
5 . Word or non word? : Words are generally responded to faster than nonwords. Less
plausible nonwords are rejected faster than more plausible nonwords . Hence in a
lexical decision task we are relatively slow to reject a non word like “siant” (which
might have been a word, and indeed which looks like one, “saint”), but very quick to
reject one such as “tnszv.” Nonwords that are plausible—that is, that follow the rules
of word formation of the language in that they do not contain illegal strings of letters
—are sometimes called pseudo words.
6 . Repetition priming : Once you have identified a word, it is easier to identify it the
next time you see it. The technique of facilitating recognition by repeating a word is
known as repetition priming. Repetition facilitates both the accuracy of perceptual
identification and lexical decision response times. Repetition has a surprisingly long-
lasting effect. It is perhaps obvious that having just seen a word will make it easier to
recognize straight away, but periods of facilitation caused by repetition have been
reported over several hours or even longer.
7 . Form-based priming : We might expect that seeing a word like CONTRAST
should make it easier to recognize CONTRACT, because there is overlap between
their physical forms. As they share letters, they are said to be orthographically related,
and this phenomenon is known as orthographic priming or form-based priming.
8 . Semantic priming : This approach can be summarized by , identification of a word
can be facilitated by prior exposure to a word related in meaning . The specialists
provided a more recent demonstration of what is one of the most robust and important
findings about word recognition. They showed that the identification of a word is
made easier if it is immediately preceded by a word related in meaning. They used a
lexical decision task, but the effect can be found, with differing magnitudes of effect,
across many tasks, and is not limited to visual word recognition . For example, we are
faster to say that “doctor” is a word if it is preceded by the word “nurse” than if it is
preceded by a word unrelated in meaning, such as “butter,” or if it is presented in
isolation.
9 . Other factors that affect word recognition : The ease of visual word recognition is
affected by a number of variables (most of which have similar effects on spoken word
recognition). There are others that should be mentioned, including the grammatical
category to which a word belongs . The imageability, meaningfulness, and
concreteness of a word may also have an effect on its identification . In a review of 51
properties of words, Rubin (1980) concluded that frequency, emotionality, and
pronunciability were the best predictors of performance on commonly used
experimental tasks. Whaley (1978) concluded that frequency, meaningfulness, and the
number of syllables had most effect on lexical decision times , although recently age-
of-acquisition has come to the fore as an important variable.
Q3-Contrast between :
1.Form-based and semantic priming.
2-Associative and non-associative semantic priming.
1.Form-based and semantic priming.
Form-based priming : There is overlap between words physical forms. As they share
letters, they are said to be orthographically related, and this phenomenon is known as
orthographic priming , for example we might expect that seeing a word like
CONTRAST should make it easier to recognize CONTRACT, because there is
overlap between their physical forms. In fact, form-based priming is very difficult to
demonstrate because :
A . Form-based priming was only effective with primes masked at short SOAs so that
the prime is not consciously perceived.
B . The efficacy of form-based primes depends on the exact make-up of the materials
in the task. Form-related primes can even have an inhibitory effect, slowing down the
recognition of the target .
C . One explanation for these findings is that visually similar words are in competition
during the recognition process, so that in some circumstances similar-looking words
inhibit each other. Form-based priming is much easier to obtain if the prime is
masked, perhaps because masked priming is a more “pure” form of priming that has
no contribution from conscious processing .

Semantic priming :This approach can be summarized by , identification of a word

can be facilitated by prior exposure to a word related in meaning . The specialists
provided a more recent demonstration of what is one of the most robust and important
findings about word recognition. They showed that the identification of a word is
made easier if it is immediately preceded by a word related in meaning. They used a
lexical decision task, but the effect can be found, with differing magnitudes of effect,
across many tasks, and is not limited to visual word recognition . For example, we are
faster to say that “doctor” is a word if it is preceded by the word “nurse” than if it is
preceded by a word unrelated in meaning, such as “butter,” or if it is presented in
isolation . It presents the following features :
A . The word priming is best reserved for the methodology of investigating what
happens when one word precedes another. The first word (the prime) might speed up
recognition of the second word (the target), in which case we talk of facilitation.
B . Semantic priming is a type of context effect. One can see that the effect might
have some advantages for processing. Words are rarely read (or heard) in isolation,
and neither are words randomly juxtaposed. Words related in meaning sometimes co-
occur in sentences. Hence processing might be speeded up if words related to the
word you are currently reading are somehow made more easily available, as they are
more likely to come next than random words.
2-Associative and non-associative semantic priming.
Some words are produced as associates of words that are not related in meaning: an
example might be “waiting” generated in response to “hospital.” Priming by
associates is called associative priming; the two associates might or might not also be
semantically related. Non-associative semantically related words are those that still
have a relation in terms of meaning to the target, but that are not produced as
associates.
Consider the words “dance” and “skate.” They are clearly related in meaning, but
“skate” is rarely produced as an associative of “dance.” “Bread” and “cake” are an
example of another pair of semantically related but unassociated words. Superordinate
category names (e.g., “animal”) and category instances (e.g., “fox”) are clearly
semantically related, but are not always strongly associated.
Members of the same category (e.g., “fox” and “camel” are both animals) are clearly
related, but are not always associated. Priming by words that are semantically but not
associatively related is called non-associative semantic priming.
Q4-Do the sentence context affect positively or negatively in the recognition of a
word? Explain.
Priming from sentence context is the amount of priming contributed over and above
that of the associative effects of individual words in the sentence. So sentence context
affect positively in the recognition of the words by the virtue of the following points :
1 . The sentence context facilitates recognition
2 . Schuberth and Eimas (1977) were the first to appear to demonstrate sentence
context effects in visual word recognition.
3 . West and Stanovich (1978) demonstrated similar facilitation by congruent contexts
on word naming. Later studies have revealed limitations with regard to when and how
much contextual facilitation can occur.
4 . Fischler and Bloom (1979) used a paradigm similar to that of Schuberth and
Eimas. They showed that facilitation only occurs if the target word is a highly
probable continuation of the sentence.
5 - Stanovich and West (1979, 1981; see also West & Stanovich, 1982) found that
contextual effects are larger for words that are harder to recognize in isolation.
Contextual facilitation was much larger when the targets were degraded by reduced
contrast. In clear conditions, we find mainly contextual facilitation of likely words;
in conditions of target degradation, we find contextual inhibition of anomalous words.
Children, who of course are less skilled at reading words in isolation than adults, also
display more contextual inhibition.
6 - In summary, sentence context can have either an early perceptual effect or a late
post perceptual effect. We can observe early effects, but only in certain tasks,
particularly ones that resemble reading of whole sentences and discourse rather than
responding to isolated words.
Q5-What are the main questions that the models of visual word recognition address?
All models of word recognition have to address four main questions . First, is
processing autonomous or interactive—in particular, are there top-down effects on
word recognition? Second, is lexical access a serial or a parallel process? Third, can
activation cascade from one level of processing to a later one, or must processing by
the later stage wait until that of the earlier one is complete? Fourth, how do we find
items?
Q6-Use a table to state the main models of the word recognition that includes three
columns; the first one for the name and the descriptions of the model, the second for
the model main principles, and the third for the suffers .
No Name & Description Main Principles Suffers
1 Fosters autonomous A . In the serial search model, The most significant criticism of
serial search The perceptual processing is followed by the serial search model concerns
model is a two-stage the sequential search of access files the plausibility of a serial search
one; you can use the that point to an entry in the lexicon. mechanism.Although introspection
catalog to find out Access files are modality-specific: suggests that word recognition is
where the book is, but there are different ones for direct rather than involving serial
you still have to go to orthographic, phonological, and search, we cannot rely on these
the shelf, find the syntactic semantic (used in speech sorts of data. Making a large
book’s actual location, production) sources. number of serial comparisons will
and extract information B . To speed up processing, these take a long time, but word
from it. Forster (1976, access files are subdivided into recognition is remarkably fast. The
1979) proposed that we separate bins on the basis of the first model accounts for the main data
identify words by a syllable or the first few letters of a in word recognition, and makes a
serial search through the word. Items within these bins are strong prediction that priming
lexicon. In this model then ordered in terms of frequency, effects should be limited to
the catalog system such that the more frequent items associative priming within the
corresponds to what are are examined first. lexicon. There should be no top-
 called access files, and
the shelf full of books to
the master file.
2 The logogen model In
this model every word
we know has its own
simple feature counter
called a logogen
corresponding to it. A
logogen accumulates
evidence until its
individual threshold
level is reached. When
this happens, the word
is recognized. Lexical
access is therefore
direct, and occurs
simultaneously and in
parallel for all words.
3 Interactive activation
models of word
recognition McClelland
and Rumelhart (1981)
and Rumelhart and
McClelland (1982)
developed a model
called interactive
activation and
competition (IAC). It is
one of the earliest of all
connectionist models.
4 Hybrid models
Hybrid models combine
parallelism (as in the
logogen and
connectionist models)
with serial search (as in
Forster’s model). In
Becker’s (1976, 1980)
verification model,
bottom-up, stimulus-
driven perceptual
processes cannot
recognize a word on
their own .A process of
down involvement of extra-lexical
knowledge in word recognition.
Finally, the model does not
convincingly account for how we
pronounce nonwords .
A . the logogen model was related In the original logogen model, a
to the information processing idea single logogen carried out all
of features and demons language tasks for a particular
B . Each logogen unit has a resting word, regardless of modality. That
level of activation. As it receives is, the same logogen would be used
corroborating evidence that it for recognizing speech and visually
corresponds to the stimulus presented words, for speaking, and
presented, its activation level for writing. The model predicts that
increases. the modality of the source of
C . If the activation level manages activation of a logogen should not
to pass a threshold, the logogen matter.
“fires” and the word is“recognized.”
Both perceptual and contextual
evidence will increase the activation
level
A . The original purpose of this The scope of the model is limited,
model was to account for word and gives no account of the roles of
context effects on letter meaning and sound in visual word
identification. processing. Connection strengths
B . The IAC model consists of many have to be coded by hand. Models
simple processing units arranged in where the connection strengths are
three levels. There is an learned have become
input level of visual feature units, a more popular.
level where units correspond to
individual letters, and an output
level where each unit corresponds to
a word.
C . The interactive activation model
of letter and word recognition has
been highly influential. As the name
implies, this type of model is
heavily interactive
A . Context generates a contextual
or semantic set of candidate items.
Both the sensory and the semantic
set are compared and verified by
detailed analysis against the visual
characteristics of the word.
B . The semantic set is verified first;
verification is serial. If a match is
not found, then the matching
process proceeds to the sensory set.
This process will generate a clear
advantage for words presented in an
appropriate context. The less
specific the context, the larger the
 top-down checking or semantic set, and the slower the
verification has the final verification process.
say. Rough perceptual
processing generates a
candidate or sensory set
of possible lexical items.
This sensory set is
ordered by frequency.

.Q7-Define lexical ambiguity, then mention its types

Lexical ambiguity is the presence of two or more possible meanings for a single word.
Ambiguity in language arises in a number of ways. There are ambiguities associated
with the segmentation of speech. Consider the spoken phrases “gray tape” with “great
ape,” and “ice cream” with “I scream”: in normal speech they sound the same. Some
sentences have more than one acceptable syntactic interpretation .
Its types are :
1 - Homophones which divided into
a . Heterographic homophones
b . Homographs
2 - polysemous words