Masked phonological priming effects in English - Center for Reading ...

K. Rastle, M. Brysbaert / Cognitive Psychology 53 (2006) 97–145 101knowledge at which words are recognized is influenced jointly by processing along directorthographic and indirect phonologically mediated routes. Under normal reading conditions,phonological processing always occurs (i.e., there is no sense in either model thatphonological processing occurs only when it is required). Further, neither of these modelshas any obvious features that would prohibit a simulation of masked phonological priming.Indeed, despite their weak-phonological architectures, these models have yieldedfavourable outcomes with regard to their ability to account for phonological effects onvisual word processing. Harm and Seidenberg (2004), in particular, have demonstratedthat their weak phonological theory provides a sufficient account of a range of classic phonologicaleffects on word recognition involving both homophones (e.g., Van Orden, 1987)and pseudohomophones (e.g., Van Orden, Johnston, & Hale, 1988). Similarly, using anearly version of the DRC model, Coltheart and Rastle (1994) produced a small simulationof the pseudohomophone effect on lexical decision, and even expressed confidence withregard to the potential for simulating masked phonological priming effects. Theyexplained,...nonlexically derived phonological representations of printed stimuli gainaccess to the visual word recognition system very early on in processing, certainlyearlier than the point at which lexical decisions are made or a reading-aloudresponse occurs.... Hence, we are optimistic about the capacity of the DRCmodel to simulate phonological masked priming effects such as those reportedby Perfetti and Bell (1991) and Ferrand and Grainger (1992). (Coltheart &Rastle, 1994, p. 1202).Clearly, either of these weak phonological theories may be significantly more robust tomasked phonological priming phenomena than the characterization, for example, putforth by Frost (1998).In this article, we contribute to a resolution of these empirical and theoretical issues. Ourfirst aim is to determine whether there is a masked phonological priming effect on Englishvisual word recognition. English is of particular interest in this context not only because themajor implemented models of skilled reading all deal with English stimuli but also becauseit provides a relatively strong test case for the existence of masked phonological primingeffects (being characterized by a substantial degree of spelling-sound irregularity; see e.g.,Ziegler & Goswami, 2005; Ziegler, Perry, & Coltheart, 2003 for discussion). To meet ourempirical aim, we first conduct a meta-analytic literature review that describes the preciseeffects obtained in every published study investigating masked phonological priming inEnglish. From this review, we establish the magnitude, effect size, and variability of maskedphonological priming phenomena across various tasks, and identify possible methodologicalproblems within relevant studies that may limit their persuasiveness. We follow thisreview by conducting two new masked phonological priming experiments, which addressthe methodological concerns unearthed in our literature review.The second aim of this article is to contribute to a fuller understanding of the theoreticalimplications of masked phonological priming effects than has so far been possible. Ourapproach is similar to that advocated by Frost (1998): to evaluate the weak phonologicalperspective on visual word recognition in the context of masked phonological primingeffects. For several reasons, we chose the weak phonological theory of visual word recognitionimplemented as the DRC model (Coltheart et al., 2001) as an excellent candidate forevaluation. In our view, this computational model provides a particularly good target for