Abstract
Two experiments were run in order to reinvestigate the role of the number of syllables in naming. Experiment 1 (word naming) showed that effects of number of syllables on naming latency were observed for very low-frequency words but not for high-frequency words (thus replicating Jared & Seidenberg’s, 1990, finding). In Experiment 2 (nonword naming), syllabic length effects were also obtained for nonwords. Control experiments found no effect on the latency of delayed naming of the same words and nonwords. These results suggest that naming does require syllabic decomposition, at least for very low-frequency words and nonwords in French. In particular, these data are compatible with any model of reading that postulates that reading aloud depends on the activity of two procedures: (1) a procedure that operates in parallel across a letter string (and does not generate a strong syllabic length effect) and that is the predominant process in generating responses to high-frequency words, and (2) another procedure that operates serially across a letter string (and generates a strong syllabic length effect) and that is the predominant process in generating responses to very low-frequency words and nonwords. These results are discussed in the context of the multiple-trace memory model for polysyllabic word naming (Ans, Carbonnel, & Valdois, 1998).
Article PDF
References
Ans, B., Carbonnel, S., &Valdois, S. (1998). A connectionist multipletrace memory model for polysyllabic word reading.Psychological Review,105, 678–723.
Carreiras, M., Alvarez, C. J., &De Vega, M. (1993). Syllable frequency and visual word recognition in Spanish.Journal of Memory & Language,32, 766–780.
Coltheart, M. (1978). Lexical access in simple reading tasks. In G. Underwood (Ed.),Strategies of information processing (pp. 151–216). London: Academic Press.
Coltheart, M., Curtis, B., Atkins, P., &Haller, M. (1993). Models of reading aloud: Dual-route and parallel-processing-distributed approaches.Psychological Review,100, 589–608.
Content, A., Mousty, P., &Radeau, M. (1990). Brulex: Une base de données lexicales informatisée pour le Français écrit et parlé [Brulex: A lexical database for written and spoken French].L’Année Psychologique,90, 551–566.
Cutler, A., Mehler, J., Norris, D., &Segui, J. (1986). The syllable’s differing role in the segmentation of French and English.Journal of Memory & Language,25, 385–400.
Eriksen, C. W., Pollack, M. D., &Montague, W. E. (1970). Implicit speech: Mechanism in perceptual coding?Journal of Experimental Psychology,84, 502–507.
Ferrand, L., Segui, J., &Grainger, J. (1996). Masked priming of word and picture naming: The role of syllabic units.Journal of Memory & Language,35, 708–723.
Ferrand, L., Segui, J., &Humphreys, G. W. (1997). The syllable’s role in word naming.Memory & Cognition,25, 458–470.
Forster, K. I., &Chambers, S. (1973). Lexical access and naming time.Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal Behavior,12, 627–635.
Frederiksen, J. R., &Kroll, J. F. (1976). Spelling and sound: Approaches to the internal lexicon.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,2, 361–379.
Grainger, J. (1990). Word frequency and neighborhood frequency effects in lexical decision and naming.Journal of Memory & Language,29, 228–244.
Henderson, L. (1982).Orthography and word recognition in reading. London: Academic Press.
Jared, D., &Seidenberg, M. S. (1990). Naming multisyllabic words.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,16, 92–105.
Klapp, S. T., Anderson, W. G., &Berrian, R. W. (1973). Implicit speech in reading reconsidered.Journal of Experimental Psychology,100, 368–374.
Klapp, S. T., &Erwin, C. I. (1976). Relation between programming time and duration of the response being programmed.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,2, 591–598.
Klapp, S. T., &Wyatt, E. T. (1976). Motor programming within a sequence of responses.Journal of Motor Behavior,8, 19–26.
Mason, M. (1978). From print to sound in mature readers as a function of reader ability and two forms of orthographic regularity.Memory & Cognition,6, 568–581.
Rastle, K., &Coltheart, M. (1998). Whammies and double whammies: The effect of length on nonword reading.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,5, 277–282.
Richardson, J. T. E. (1976). The effect of stimulus attributes upon latency of word recognition.British Journal of Psychology,67, 315–325.
Segui, J. (1984). The syllable: A basic perceptual unit in speech perception? In H. Bouma & D. G. Bouwhuis (Eds.),Attention and performance X: Control of language processes (pp. 165–181). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Seidenberg, M. S., &McClelland, J. L. (1989). A distributed, developmental model of visual word recognition and naming.Psychological Review,96, 523–568.
Weekes, B. S. (1997). Differential effects of number of letters on word and nonword naming latency.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,50A, 439–456.
Ziegler, J. C., Jacobs, A. M., &Stone, G. O. (1996). Statistical analysis of the bidirectional inconsistency of spelling and sound in French.Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers,28, 504–515.
Ziegler, J. C., Stone, G. O., &Jacobs, A. M. (1997). What is the pronunciation for -ough and the spelling for /u/? A database for computing feedforward and feedback inconsistency in English.Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers,29, 600–618.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
The author is grateful to Ken Forster, Debra Jared, Keith Rayner, and an anonymous reviewer for helpful feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript. Thanks are extended to Pascale Colé for her invaluable help in analyzing morphologically complex words and to Véronique Pinaud for running the experiments.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ferrand, L. Reading aloud polysyllabic words and nonwords: The syllabic length effect reexamined. Psychon Bull Rev 7, 142–148 (2000). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03210733
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03210733