1 Cognitive Psychology C81COG 3. What Kind Of Memories Are Necessary To Support Reading? Dr Jonathan Stirk

2 What Kind Of Memories Are Necessary To Support Reading? Overview Lexical Memory, Working Memory and Semantic Memory – three different uses of memory while reading not necessarily three different memory systems The Role of Speech Recoding in Reading – Creating speech-based memories from a visual input – Is this essential when reading? Working Memory (STM) – serves the "Comprehension Calculation" (remembering words from the beginning of the sentence so that they can be integrated with later words)

Background Reading Chapter 1. – Underwood, G. & Batt, V. (1996). Reading and Understanding. Blackwell:UK. 3

4 Lexical Memory, Working Memory and Semantic Memory LEXICAL MEMORY to know word meanings – Is BURD a word? – Are MOURN and GRIEVE synonyms? WORKING MEMORY to calculate sentence meanings – Does this string of words make any sense? – Noisy lecturers disturb hardworking students when they are trying to sleep

5 Lexical Memory, Working Memory and Semantic Memory SEMANTIC MEMORY to appreciate text meanings. Compare the following sentences: – "When she saw the possibility of some fun, Pussy Galore winked at James Bond and they disappeared for some time together" – "When she saw the possibility of some fun, Elizabeth Bennet winked at her sister Jane and they disappeared for some time together"

6 Lexical Memory, Working Memory and Semantic Memory SEMANTIC MEMORY to appreciate text meanings. Does the following make sense? – The man ordered a hamburger from the menu and then waited. When his food eventually arrived it was cold. He stormed out of the restaurant. The waitress picked up a big tip. We use scripts to help us to interpret commonly occurring situations/events (Schank & Abelson, 1977) – restaurant script (entering, ordering, eating, leaving) – cinema script – lecture script

7 Working Memory- Baddeley & Hitch (1974)

8 Speech Recoding in Reading - The Pseudohomophone Effect (Rubenstein, Lewis & Rubenstein, 1971) The Lexical Decision Task: – Look at this string of letters, and decide whether they form a word. Then press the YES button or the NO button. Response Time (msec) YES Response Non-homophonic words(GIFT; WALL) 760 Homophonic words(WEAK; SAIL) 791 NO Response Illegal non-words(LIJK; SAGM) 859 Legal non-words(ROLT; BARP)1013 Pseudohomophones(BURD; GROE)1076

9 Speech Recoding in Reading - The Pseudohomophone Effect (Barron, 1978) Task 1: – Good vs. Poor Readers with a lexical decision task – 10/12 year old pairs with matched chronological age – Reading mental age differs by 2 years within a pair Legal non-wordsPseudohomo- phones Good readers 1019 ms <<1087 ms Poor Readers 1099 ms <1129 ms Not signif! Significant

10 Speech Recoding in Reading - The Pseudohomophone Effect (Barron, 1978) Task 2: – Pronunciation task with the same young readers – The correlation between reading speed (using pronunciation time as the measure) and the size of an individual's pseudohomophone effect r = +0.30* – So: faster readers have larger/stronger pseudohomophone effects

11 Faster readers have larger pseudohomophone effects Size of effect Reading speed slowfast r = 0.3 Fast readers show larger pseudohomophone effects Fast readers quickly apply GPC rules

12 Suppression of Speech Recoding While Reading (Kleiman, 1975) Readers are prevented from recoding print into sub-vocal speech by having them shadow lists of digits while performing the reading tasks. Compare normal readers against shadowing readers to obtain the decrement caused by shadowing. Question: Which reading tasks suffer a decrement in performance when shadowing (speech suppression) is required? – these are the reading tasks that require speech recoding – if a reading task can be performed without a speech suppression decrement, then we will conclude that this component of reading does not require speech recoding

13 Suppression of Speech Recoding While Reading (Kleiman, 1975) EXPT. 1 RT increase (msec) a. Graphemic Decisions: – do these two words look the same? e.g. HEARD/BEARD GRACE/PRICE125 b. Phonemic Decisions: – do they sound the same? e.g. TICKLE/PICKLE LEMON/DEMON372 c. Semantic Decisions: – do they mean the same? e.g. MOURN/GRIEVE DEPART/COUPLE120 LARGE DISRUPTION

14 Suppression of Speech Recoding While Reading (Kleiman, 1975) Graphemic and Semantic Decisions are less affected by speech suppression than Phonemic Decisions Graphemic Decisions should not logically require speech recoding. So does this mean that Semantic Decisions do not require speech recoding either? Question: why does speech recoding look as if it is necessary for word recognition, from the Pseudohomophone Effect?

15 Dual Access Model Visual Analysis G-P-C Rules Mental Lexicon Written Word Visual representation of stimulus Auditory representation of stimulus ŒDirect route Indirect route

16 Suppression of Speech Recoding While Reading (Kleiman, 1975) EXPT. 2 RT increase (msec) a. Graphemic Word Search – does the word BURY look like any of the words in the sentence? – YESTERDAY THE GRAND JURY ADJOURNED 140 b. Phonemic Word Search – does the word CREAM sound like any of the words in the sentence? – HE AWAKENED FROM THE DREAM 312

17 Suppression of Speech Recoding While Reading (Kleiman, 1975) EXPT. 2 contd RT increase (msec) c. Categorical Word Search – are there any members of the category GAMES in the sentence? – EVERYONE AT HOME PLAYED MONOPOLY 78 d. Sentence Acceptability – does this sentence make any sense? – PIZZAS HAVE BEEN EATING JERRY394

18 Suppression of Speech Recoding While Reading (Kleiman, 1975) EXPT. 2 shows that Graphemic and Phonemic Word Searches follow the same pattern as in Experiment 1 – speech recoding is required for the Phonemic task but not for the Graphemic task. The Categorical Word Search (equivalent to the Semantic Decision in Expt. 1) again follows the same pattern as the Graphemic task. Sentence Acceptability suffers most from speech suppression – Kleiman concludes that this task uses Working Memory (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974), and that this requires the use of speech recoding Graphemic 140 Phonemic 312 Categorical /Semantic 78 Sentence acceptability 394