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- Barton, Jason J. S., et al.
(författare)
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The word-length effect in reading: A review
- 2014
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Ingår i: Cognitive Neuropsychology. - : Taylor and Francis (Routledge): STM, Behavioural Science and Public Health Titles. - 0264-3294 .- 1464-0627. ; 31:5-6, s. 378-412
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The finding that visual processing of a word correlates with the number of its letters has an extensive history. In healthy subjects, a variety of methods, including perceptual thresholds, naming and lexical decision times, and ocular motor parameters, show modest effects that interact with high-order effects like frequency. Whether this indicates serial processing of letters under some conditions or indexes low-level visual factors related to word length is unclear. Word-length effects are larger in pure alexia, where they probably reflect a serial letter-by-letter strategy, due to failure of lexical whole-word processing and variable dysfunction in letter encoding. In pure alexia, the word-length effect is systematically related to mean naming latency, with the word-length effect becoming proportionally greater as naming latency becomes more delayed in severe cases. Other conditions may also generate enhanced word-length effects. This occurs in right hemianopia: Computer simulations suggest a criterion of 160 ms/letter to distinguish hemianopic dyslexia from pure alexia. Normal reading development is accompanied by a decrease in word-length effects, whereas persistently elevated word-length effects are characteristic of developmental dyslexia. Little is known about word-length effects in other reading disorders. We conclude that the word-length effect captures the efficiency of the perceptual reading process in development, normal reading, and a number of reading disorders, even if its mechanistic implications are not always clear.
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