Gepo with a G, or Jepo with a J? Skilled Readers Generate Orthographic Expectations for Novel Spoken Words Even When Spelling is Uncertain
Ikusi/ Ireki
Data
2022Egilea
Jevtović, Mina
Antzaka, Alexia
Martin, Clara D.
Jevtović, M., Antzaka, A. and Martin, C.D. (2022), Gepo with a G, or Jepo with a J? Skilled Readers Generate Orthographic Expectations for Novel Spoken Words Even When Spelling is Uncertain. Cognitive Science, 46: e13118. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13118
Cognitive Science
Cognitive Science
Laburpena
English-speaking children and adults generate orthographic skeletons (i.e., preliminary orthographic
representations) solely from aural exposure to novel words. The present study examined whether
skilled readers generate orthographic skeletons for all novel words they learn or do so only when
the words have a unique possible spelling. To that end, 48 Spanish adults first provided their preferred
spellings for all novel words that were to appear in the experiment. Critically, consistent words had
only one, while inconsistent words had two possible spellings. Two weeks later, they were trained on
the pronunciations of the novel words through aural instruction. They then saw the spellings of these
newly acquired words, along with a set of untrained words, in a self-paced sentence reading task.
Participants read previously acquired consistent and inconsistent words presented in their preferred
spellings faster than inconsistent words with unpreferred spellings. Importantly, no differences were
observed in reading untrained consistent and inconsistent words (either preferred or unpreferred). This
suggests that participants had generated orthographic skeletons for trained words with two possible
spellings according to their individual spelling preferences. These findings provide further evidence
for the orthographic skeleton account and show that initial orthographic representations are generated
even when the spelling of a newly acquired word is uncertain.