Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - I see/hear what you mean
T2 - semantic activation in visual word recognition depends on perceptual attention
AU - Connell, Louise
AU - Lynott, Dermot
PY - 2014/4
Y1 - 2014/4
N2 - How does the meaning of a word affect how quickly we can recognize it? Accounts of visual word recognition allow semantic information to facilitate performance but have neglected the role of modality-specific perceptual attention in activating meaning. We predicted that modality-specific semantic information would differentially facilitate lexical decision and reading aloud, depending on how perceptual attention is implicitly directed by each task. Large-scale regression analyses showed the perceptual modalities involved in representing a word’s referent concept influence how easily that word is recognized. Both lexical decision and reading-aloud tasks direct attention toward vision, and are faster and more accurate for strongly visual words. Reading aloud additionally directs attention toward audition and is faster and more accurate for strongly auditory words. Furthermore, the overall semantic effects areas large for reading aloud as lexical decision and are separable from age-of-acquisition effects. These findings suggest that implicitly directing perceptual attention toward a particular modality facilitates representing modality-specific perceptual information in the meaning of a word, which in turn contributes to the lexical decision or reading-aloud response.
AB - How does the meaning of a word affect how quickly we can recognize it? Accounts of visual word recognition allow semantic information to facilitate performance but have neglected the role of modality-specific perceptual attention in activating meaning. We predicted that modality-specific semantic information would differentially facilitate lexical decision and reading aloud, depending on how perceptual attention is implicitly directed by each task. Large-scale regression analyses showed the perceptual modalities involved in representing a word’s referent concept influence how easily that word is recognized. Both lexical decision and reading-aloud tasks direct attention toward vision, and are faster and more accurate for strongly visual words. Reading aloud additionally directs attention toward audition and is faster and more accurate for strongly auditory words. Furthermore, the overall semantic effects areas large for reading aloud as lexical decision and are separable from age-of-acquisition effects. These findings suggest that implicitly directing perceptual attention toward a particular modality facilitates representing modality-specific perceptual information in the meaning of a word, which in turn contributes to the lexical decision or reading-aloud response.
KW - Visual word recognition
KW - Word naming
KW - LEXICAL DECISION
KW - semantics
KW - Perceptual strength
KW - Perceptual attention
U2 - 10.1037/a0034626
DO - 10.1037/a0034626
M3 - Journal article
VL - 143
SP - 527
EP - 533
JO - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
JF - Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
SN - 0096-3445
IS - 2
ER -