Schedule of Events | Symposia

Reading with intent: Phonological processing not always automatic

Poster Session A - Saturday, March 29, 2025, 3:00 – 5:00 pm EDT, Back Bay Ballroom/Republic Ballroom

Niki Sinha¹ (nsinha7@uwo.ca), Marc Joanisse¹; ¹Western University

This study tested the automaticity of accessing sound-spelling pairings during reading in adults using event-related potentials in EEG. We focus on whether goal-driven attention exerts a top-down influence on automatic word recognition and minimizes interference from sound-spelling conflict. We recorded EEG in 37 English adult readers as they made quick judgements of visually presented word-pairs. Tasks directed attention to different aspects of word information by asking participants to judge word-pairs on spelling or colour. Orthographic and phonological conflict was manipulated by presenting word-pairs that shared both (cool/pool) or neither (boat/fair), versus conflict trials which were mismatched in orthography (cane/rain) or phonology (most/cost). Participants had slower reaction times to conflict trials when making spelling judgments, but not colour judgements. EEG analysis found enhanced N400 negativity when comparing conflict trials to their non-conflict counterparts, suggesting both orthographic and phonological differences between word-pairs were recognized when participants made spelling judgements. This effect was attenuated in the colour judgement task where comparison of conflict and non-conflict trials revealed N400 differences only in trials with orthographic mismatch. Results show automatic orthographic effects regardless of task; however sound-spelling conflict did not occur when participant attention was directed to non-word information, highlighting the role of attention in what we might think of as automatization during reading.

Topic Area: ATTENTION: Other