Publicação
Letters in the looking glass along reading development : developmental trajectory of mirrored and rotated letter processing within words
| Resumo: | Discrimination of mirror-image letters as d and b poses a challenge during literacy acquisition due to mirror invariance (an original property of the visual system that treats lateral reflected images as equivalent percepts). Indeed, one must overcome this perceptual bias inherited by evolution in order to effectively discriminate these letters and to automatize reading in the Latin alphabet. Previous studies have shown that in adult readers, whereas masked priming of mirrored and rotated transformations (i.e. rotations in the picture plane of 90º or 180º: e.g., N and Z, to which the visual system is originally sensitive) of reversible letters (for which orientation is a diagnostic feature: e.g., d and b; primes: ibea and ipea) inhibit word recognition (IDEA), interference is weaker for nonreversible letters (which differ from other letters of the script by shape, being orientation a non-diagnostic feature: e.g., R or F). The present study investigated the developmental trajectory of these orientation transformations (i.e., mirrored and rotated) effects of reversible and nonreversible letters (e.g., d and t, respectively) from second to sixth grade (and in adults, college students), combining lexical decision with sandwich priming. For both letter types, the magnitude of identity priming (i.e., when identification is highly facilitated when prime and target are identical; e.g., idea – IDEA; measured with Cohen’s d) increased along reading development, suggesting that the access to orthographic representations becomes faster throughout literacy acquisition. It was only in beginning readers that mirror invariance was found for both letter types. Plane rotations are processed automatically since the beginning of reading development, and in fifth grade, a significant magnitude of interference (that is, slower word decisions) was found for mirrored reversible (but not for nonreversible) letters relative to identical ones. For nonreversible letters, in sixth grade, the magnitude of interference for mirrored letters was already similar to that of adults. For reversible letters, inhibition for mirrored and rotated transformations continued to grow until adulthood. This pattern of results suggests that mirror discrimination of reversible letters is automatized since fifth grade and, by sixth grade, children do not show any mirror invariance for either letter type (resembling the adults). |
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| Autores principais: | Velasco, Sofia Esteves Bélico de |
| Assunto: | Desenvolvimento da leitura Reconhecimento visual Processamento ortográfico Dissertações de mestrado - 2022 |
| Ano: | 2022 |
| País: | Portugal |
| Tipo de documento: | dissertação de mestrado |
| Tipo de acesso: | acesso aberto |
| Instituição associada: | Universidade de Lisboa |
| Idioma: | inglês |
| Origem: | Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa |
| Resumo: | Discrimination of mirror-image letters as d and b poses a challenge during literacy acquisition due to mirror invariance (an original property of the visual system that treats lateral reflected images as equivalent percepts). Indeed, one must overcome this perceptual bias inherited by evolution in order to effectively discriminate these letters and to automatize reading in the Latin alphabet. Previous studies have shown that in adult readers, whereas masked priming of mirrored and rotated transformations (i.e. rotations in the picture plane of 90º or 180º: e.g., N and Z, to which the visual system is originally sensitive) of reversible letters (for which orientation is a diagnostic feature: e.g., d and b; primes: ibea and ipea) inhibit word recognition (IDEA), interference is weaker for nonreversible letters (which differ from other letters of the script by shape, being orientation a non-diagnostic feature: e.g., R or F). The present study investigated the developmental trajectory of these orientation transformations (i.e., mirrored and rotated) effects of reversible and nonreversible letters (e.g., d and t, respectively) from second to sixth grade (and in adults, college students), combining lexical decision with sandwich priming. For both letter types, the magnitude of identity priming (i.e., when identification is highly facilitated when prime and target are identical; e.g., idea – IDEA; measured with Cohen’s d) increased along reading development, suggesting that the access to orthographic representations becomes faster throughout literacy acquisition. It was only in beginning readers that mirror invariance was found for both letter types. Plane rotations are processed automatically since the beginning of reading development, and in fifth grade, a significant magnitude of interference (that is, slower word decisions) was found for mirrored reversible (but not for nonreversible) letters relative to identical ones. For nonreversible letters, in sixth grade, the magnitude of interference for mirrored letters was already similar to that of adults. For reversible letters, inhibition for mirrored and rotated transformations continued to grow until adulthood. This pattern of results suggests that mirror discrimination of reversible letters is automatized since fifth grade and, by sixth grade, children do not show any mirror invariance for either letter type (resembling the adults). |
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