Reviews recent research on crosslinguistic variation. Suggests that lexical systems are as notable for their differences as they are for their similarities. (Author/VWL)

Converging evidence from a number of neuroimaging studies suggest that fluent word identification in reading is related to the functional integrity of two left hemisphere posterior systems: a temporo-parietal system and a ventral occipito-temporal system. Readers with difficulties demonstrate heightened reliance on both inferior frontal and right…

A lateralized backward masking paradigm was used to examine hemisphere differences in orthographic and phonological processes at an early time course of word recognition. Targets (e.g., bowl) were presented and backward masked by either pseudohomophones of the target word (orthographically and phonologically similar, e.g., BOAL), orthographically…

We applied SMR/theta neurofeedback (NF) training at central sites of 20 Israeli children aged 10-12 years, half boys and half girls. Half of the subjects received C3 training and the other half C4 training, consisting of 20 half-hour sessions. We assessed the effects of training on lateralized lexical decision in Hebrew. The lateralized lexical…

Difficulties with picture naming tasks are associated with literacy problems. When given naming tasks, children with dyslexia are slower to produce words and have a higher proportion of errors (M. Wolf & P. G. Bowers, 1999). However, little is known about the relation between literacy and naming in other populations. This study investigated this…

The aim of the present study was to determine whether processing of syntactic word information (lemma) is subserved by the same neural substrate as processing of conceptual or word form information (lexeme). We measured BOLD responses in 14 native speakers of German in three different decision tasks, each focussing specifically on one level of…

We tested the effect of local lexical ambiguities while manipulating the type of prosodic boundary at which the ambiguity occurred, using French sentences and participants. We observed delayed lexical access when a local lexical ambiguity occurred within a phonological phrase (consistent with previous research; e.g., '[un chat grincheux],'…

Five experiments investigated the role of sentence context in influencing recognition decisions. Sentence stems were presented only in the study phase, only in the test phase, or in both; in addition, the coherence of the sentences was varied, such that terminal words were highly constrained by, merely consistent with, or actually incongruous with…

Letters and words are better identified when there are fewer available choices. How do readers use choice-set restrictions? By analyzing new experimental data and previously reported data, the author shows that Bayes theorem-based models overestimate readers' use of choice-set restrictions. This result is discordant with choice-similarity models…

The research tests the prediction of the inhibitory-interaction hypothesis (Wey, Cook, Landis, Regard, & Graves, 1993) that experience with a task accentuates the functional imbalance between the hemispheres. Right-handed males who were experienced readers were presented a letter string to the centre visual field for lexical decision. The string…

Three naming experiments were conducted to examine the role of the first and the second syllable during speech production in Spanish. Facilitative effects of syllable frequency with disyllabic words have been reported in Dutch and Spanish (Levelt & Wheeldon, 1994; Perea & Carreiras, 1998). In both cases, the syllable frequency effect was…

Earlier investigations have found mixed evidence of source monitoring impairment in autism. The present study examined three types of source monitoring ability in children with autism and typically developing children. In three different conditions, participants were presented with word lists after which they were required to recall the source of…

This study examined the development of neural processing of auditorally presented words in high functioning children with autism. The purpose was to test the hypothesis that electrophysiological abnormalities associated with impairments in early cortical processing and in semantic processing persist into early adolescence in autistic individuals.…

There is debate about whether preschool-age children interpret words as referring to kinds or to classes defined by shape similarity. The authors argue that the shape bias reported in previous studies is a task-induced artifact rather than a genuine word-learning strategy. In particular, children were forced to extend an object's novel label to…

Two experiments examined the learning of form-meaning connections under conditions where the relevant forms were noticed but the critical aspects of meaning were not. Miniature noun class systems were employed, and the participants were told that the choice of determiner in noun phrases depended on whether the object was "near" or "far" from the…