lexical decision task

(Rubenstein, Garfield and Millikan) >present string of letters >some are words, some are non-sense strings of letters >press button to indicate whether letters are a word or non-sense

using LDT to explore concepts

>development and learning >emotions >acquired impairments >personality

lexical decision task hypotheses

>speed of identification dependent on word frequency >dependent on age of learning e.g. later AoA linked to slower identification

age of acquisition

>Carroll and White- impacts adult word processing times >early acquired words may act as semantic hubs so have a more central place within a semantic network >could be explained by greater neural plasticity during early language acquisition

word length hypothesis

length of words influences reaction time in LDTs

processing speed hypothesis

longer words require more time to process due to larger visual and cognitive load

parallel processing models

some aspect of word recognition occur simultaneously, reducing the impact of word length

interactive activation models of word recognition

weaker word length effects due to simultaneous processing letter-level and word-level information

connectionist models of word recognition

longer word require more cycles of activation, supporting graded impact of word length

dual-route cascaded model of word recognition

differentiates between lexical sub-lexical processing, explaining why length effects vary based of word familiarity

automacity

more automatic reading processes reduce word length effect

cognitive load

longer word increase cognitive load, revealing how limited-capacity systems manage complex stimuli

selective attention theory for the stroop effect

selective attention chooses which stimuli is granted further processing and awareness, so in a Stroop task written information is processed over the colour

automaticity theory for the stroop effect

reading words is more of an automated process than recognising colour

speed of processing theory

process written words faster than processing colour so its harder to identify the colour

parallel distributed theory for the stroop effect

different pathways created for different tasks, and the strength of the pathway affects which aspect is easier to identify

phonological deficit hypothesis of dyslexia

caused by cognitive deficit specific to representations and processing of speech sounds

rapid automatic naming task

>strongly correlated with reading ability >predicts future reading ability >used in literacy screening