A Blessing in Disguise: Flanking Words Can Cancel Language Switch Costs.

Prior research has shown that a sentence context can decrease the necessity for language control relative to single word processing. In particular, measures of language control such as language switch costs are reduced or even absent in a sentence context. Yet, this evidence is mainly based on bilingual language production and is far from straightforward. To further investigate this issue in the comprehension modality, we relied on the lexical flanker task, which is known to introduce sentence-like processing. More specifically, Dutch-English bilinguals (n = 68) performed a classification task in mixed language blocks on target words that were either presented alone or flanked by unrelated words in the same language. While overall no L1 switch costs were observed, we only observed L2 switch costs in the no-flanker condition. This pattern of results indicates that the presence of flankers can reduce or even abolish switch costs, suggesting that the language control process can benefit from sentence(-like) processing compared to single word processing.

Lexical competition in the flankers task revisited.

We investigated the impact of flanking stimuli that are orthographic neighbors of central target words in the reading version of the flankers task. Experiment 1 provided a replication of the finding that flanking words that are orthographic neighbors of central target words (e.g., BLUE BLUR BLUE) facilitate lexical decisions relative to unrelated word flankers (e.g., STEP BLUR STEP). Experiment 2 tested the hypothesis that this facilitatory effect might be due to the task that was used in Experiment 1 and in prior research-the lexical decision task. In Experiment 2 the task was perceptual identification, and here we observed that orthographic neighbor flankers interfered with target word identification. Experiment 2 also included a bigram flanker condition (e.g., BL BLUR UE), and here the related bigram flankers facilitated target word identification. We conclude that when the task requires identification of a specific word, effects of lexical competition emerge over and above the facilitatory effects driven by the sublexical spatial pooling of orthographic information across target and flankers, and that the inhibitory influence of lexical competition has an even stronger impact when flankers are whole words.

The impact of atypical text presentation on transposed-word effects.

When asked to decide if an ungrammatical sequence of words is grammatically correct or not, readers find it more difficult to do so (longer response times (RTs) and more errors) if the ungrammatical sequence is created by transposing two words from a correct sentence (e.g., the white was cat big) compared with matched ungrammatical sequences where transposing two words does not produce a correct sentence (e.g., the white was cat slowly). Here, we provide a further exploration of transposed-word effects when reading unspaced text in Experiment 1, and when reading from right-to-left ("backwards" reading) in Experiment 2. We found significant transposed-word effects in error rates but not in RTs, a pattern previously found in studies using a one-word-at-a-time sequential presentation. We conclude that the absence of transposed-word effects in RTs in the present study and prior work is due to that atypical nature of the way that text was presented. Under the hypothesis that transposed-word effects at least partly reflect a certain amount of parallel word processing during reading, we further suggest that the ability to process words in parallel would require years of exposure to text in its regular format.

Validated tests for language research with university students whose native language is English: Tests of vocabulary, general knowledge, author recognition, and reading comprehension.

We present five studies aimed at developing an L1 vocabulary test for English-speaking university students. Such a test is useful as an indicator of crystallized intelligence and because vocabulary size correlates well with reading comprehension. In the first study, we tested 100 written words with four answer alternatives, based on Nation's Vocabulary Size Test. Analysis suggested two factors, which we interpreted as the possible existence of two types of difficult words: unknown words for general knowledge and unknown words for specialized knowledge. In Study 2, we attempted to develop a vocabulary test for each type of word, and these tests were then validated in Study 3. Since the test for general words proved too easy for the target population, we improved it in a fourth study by creating and testing more difficult items. Finally, a fifth study was conducted to validate the new test. Unexpectedly, Study 5 found a high correlation (r = .82) between the general knowledge vocabulary test and the specialized knowledge vocabulary test, suggesting that they measure the same latent factor, contrary to our initial assumption. Both tests have high reliability (r > .85) and correlate well (r > .4) with general knowledge, author recognition, and reading comprehension. In addition, a collection of other language tests was used and improved to verify the validity of the vocabulary tests. An exploratory factor analysis of all tests identified three factors (text comprehension, crystallized intelligence, and reading speed), with the vocabulary tests loading on the factor crystallized intelligence, which in turn correlates with reading comprehension. Structural equation modeling confirmed the interpretation.

Transposed-word effects when reading serially.

When asked to decide if an ungrammatical sequence of words is grammatically correct or not readers find it more difficult to do so (longer response times (RTs) and more errors) if the ungrammatical sequence is created by transposing two words from a correct sentence (e.g., the white was cat big) compared with a set of matched ungrammatical sequences for which transposing any two words could not produce a correct sentence (e.g., the white was cat slowly). Here, we provide a further exploration of transposed-word effects while imposing serial reading by using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) in Experiments 1 (respond at the end of the sequence) and 2 (respond as soon as possible-which could be during the sequence). Crucially, in Experiment 3 we compared performance under serial RSVP conditions with parallel presentation of the same stimuli for the same total duration and with the same group of participants. We found robust transposed-word effects in the RSVP conditions tested in all experiments, but only in error rates and not in RTs. This contrasts with the effects found in both errors and RTs in our prior work using parallel presentation, as well as the parallel presentation conditions tested in Experiment 3. We provide a tentative account of why, under conditions that impose a serial word-by-word reading strategy, transposed-word effects are only seen in error rates and not in RTs.

Now you see it, now you don't: Flanker presence induces the word concreteness effect.

Can the presence of unrelated flanker words change the way that lexical decisions are made to target words in the flankers task? Here we examined the impact of flanker presence on the effects of word concreteness. Target words had high or low concreteness ratings (e.g., fork, free) and were either presented in isolation or flanked to the left and right by an unrelated word (e.g., cold free cold) that was irrelevant for the task. Results revealed that the facilitatory effect of concreteness (faster responses to concrete words compared with abstract words) was significantly greater in the presence of flankers. A control experiment revealed the same pattern with pseudoword and nonword flankers. We conclude that the mere presence of flanking letter strings causes a greater depth of processing of target words. We further speculate that this might arise by flankers inducing a more "sentence-like" context by the presence of multiple, spatially distinct letter strings, that prohibits the use of more superficial decision processes and can be used to make lexical decisions to isolated words.

How readers process syntactic input depends on their goals.

During reading, the recognition of words is influenced by the syntactic compatibility of surrounding words: a sentence-superiority effect. However, when the goal is to make syntactic categorization decisions about single target words, these decisions are influenced by the syntactic congruency rather than compatibility of surrounding words. Although both these premises imply that readers can extract syntactic information from multiple words in parallel, they also suggest that how the brain organizes syntactic input-and consequently how surrounding stimuli affect word recognition-depends on the reader's top-down goals. The present study provides a direct test of this conception. Participants were offered nouns and verbs amidst a grammatical context ('this horse fell') and ungrammatical context ('fell horse this'). Using a conditional task setup, we manipulated the amount of emphasis put on respectively sentences and single words. In two blocks readers were instructed to make sentence grammaticality judgments only if the middle word was respectively noun or verb; in two other blocks readers were instructed to syntactically categorize the middle word only if the sentence was respectively correct or incorrect. We established an interaction effect whereby the impact of grammatical correctness on syntactic categorization decisions was greater than the effect of grammatical correctness per se. This first sentence-superiority effect in the categorization of single words, combined with the absence of this effect in prior flanker studies, leads us to surmise that word-to-word syntactic constraints only operate if the reader is engaged in sentence processing.

Letter migration errors reflect spatial pooling of orthographic information.

Prior research has shown that readers may misread words by switching letters across words (e.g., the word sand in sand lane being recognized as land). These so-called letter migration errors have been observed using a divided attention paradigm whereby two words are briefly presented simultaneously, and one is postcued for identification. Letter migrations might therefore be due to a task-induced division of attention across the two words. Here, we show that a similar rate of migration errors is obtained in a flanker paradigm in which a central target word is flanked to the left and to the right by task-irrelevant flanking words. Three words were simultaneously presented for the same brief duration. Asked to type the target word postoffset, participants produced more migration errors when the migrating letter occupied the same position in the flanker and target words, with significantly fewer migrations occurring across adjacent positions, and the effect disappearing across nonadjacent positions. Our results provide further support for the hypothesis that orthographic information spanning multiple words is processed in parallel and spatially integrated (pooled) within a single channel. It is the spatial pooling of sublexical orthographic information that is thought to drive letter migration errors.