An Extension of a Parallel‐Distributed Processing Framework of Reading Aloud in Japanese: Human Nonword Reading Accuracy Does Not Require a Sequential Mechanism. (20th June 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Ikeda, Kenji; Ueno, Taiji; Ito, Yuichi; Kitagami, Shinji; Kawaguchi, Jun
• Is Part Of: Cognitive science. Volume 41:(2017)supplement 6
• Page Start: 1288
• Page End: 1317
• Publication Date: 2016-06-20
• Subjects: Reading -- Parallel distributed processing -- Serial processing -- Nonword reading; Cognition -- Periodicals; Psycholinguistics -- Periodicals; Artificial intelligence -- Periodicals; 153.05
• DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12382
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0364-0213

Abstract

Abstract: Humans can pronounce a nonword (e.g., rint). Some researchers have interpreted this behavior as requiring a sequential mechanism by which a grapheme‐phoneme correspondence rule is applied to each grapheme in turn. However, several parallel‐distributed processing (PDP) models in English have simulated human nonword reading accuracy without a sequential mechanism. Interestingly, the Japanese psycholinguistic literature went partly in the same direction, but it has since concluded that a sequential parsing mechanism is required to reproduce human nonword reading accuracy. In this study, by manipulating the list composition (i.e., pure word/nonword list vs. mixed list), we demonstrated that past psycholinguistic studies in Japanese have overestimated human nonword reading accuracy. When the more fairly reevaluated human performance was targeted, a newly implemented Japanese PDP model simulated the target accuracy as well as the error patterns. These findings suggest that PDP models are a more parsimonious way of explaining reading across various languages.