A componential and electrophysiological analysis of skilled reading.
Item
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Title
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A componential and electrophysiological analysis of skilled reading.
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Identifier
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AAI8820857
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identifier
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8820857
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Creator
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Dince, William Michael.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Jeffrey Rosen
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Date
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1988
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Psychology, Experimental
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Abstract
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Reading is a complex cognitive skill which involves learning to use the visual symbols, or orthography, of words to guide the access of phonetic, semantic, and syntactic information. The present study investigated the relationships between the behavioral and electrophysiological responses elicited while subjects performed tasks that represented some of the processing requirements of skilled reading. A group of highly skilled readers (mean education = 18 years) performed a task requiring comparison of word pairs based upon orthographic, phonetic, semantic, or syntactic characteristics. The stimuli were presented sequentially, in quasi-random order, with a pre-trial cue identifying the required processing. Subjects performed the tasks over three sessions, providing the time-on-task to reach a steadier state of behavior for the analysis of reaction time and evoked potential measures. Reaction time and accuracy measures were collected for all sessions, evoked potential measures were collected to the pretrial cue in session three. A fourth session was constructed to investigate the effects of uncertainty on responses.;The results supported a proposed organization of the visual language system. Further analysis demonstrated a continuum of responses could be identified, based upon individual subjects' patterns of performance. Subjects who demonstrated a pattern where performance of the task requiring phonetic processing was rapid relative to the tasks requiring orthographic and semantic processing (G-P-C), were the most rapid and accurate on the four tasks. Subjects who demonstrated a pattern where performance of the task requiring semantic processing was rapid relative to the tasks requiring orthographic and phonetic processing (G-C-P) were the least rapid and accurate on the tasks. Errors on the Phonetic task predicted performance on all of the tasks while errors on the Category task did not. The results support the importance of efficient phonological processing in the development of skilled reading. The introduction of uncertainty slowed overall performance but did not differentially impact upon any group of subjects identified by the pattern analysis.;Evoked potential measures indicated that the latency of P2 was less for the Graphic-Phonetic-Category group than the Graphic-Category-Phonetic group. This finding suggests the G-P-C group forms an earlier integration of visual information. No differences were found at P3 or the late negativity present in the waveforms.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
