Lexical Access to Albanian and English Letters

The indication of verbal ability in lexical access speed

It has been assumed that the lexical access speed associate with verbal ability and  the speed of lexical access to the information that have been stored in long term memory as one of the basic components which correlated with high verbal ability. Also, speed of lexical access plays an important role in reading skill. For example, the central featureof the interactiveactivation model, isthat the processingofinformationduring reading consists of series of levels corresponding to visual features, letters and words. Other researchers have indicated that recognition of letters and words is happening under separate processing processes (e.g., Papp et al., 1982).

In fact, there is a large body of research indicates that expert readers perform faster and accurately during tasks that involve letters from the known language compared to tasks that involve unfamiliar letter-like forms (e.g., pseudoletters: Burgund, Lugar, Schlaggar, & Petersen, 2005; Burgund, Schlaggar, &Petersen, 2006; Lachmann&VanLeeuwen, 2004).

This means that the frequent exposure to letters of native language, and using it in everyday interactions increase the automaticity of processing tasks that based on it. Thus, it isn’t surprising that subject performing these tasks is speeder than other tasks which based on unfamiliar language.

Otherstudieshavesuggested that the degree of left -lateralization depends on the linguistic familiarity of the characters.

These finding provided evidence that performing even very simple tasks such as letter matching is affected by culture differences, familiarity and task demands. Most of these studies have used letters and unfamiliar letter- like forms , but the current study used two types of name matching task: English and Albanian matching letters. The experiment was conducted on university students, with their native language albanian. They have studied English language from the beginning of the primary stage, and their studding continued through various stages of education. Thus, if the speed of lexical access to both types of Posner name matching tasks depends on performance components only, then there wouldn’t be any differences in responses of subjects to them.

Speed of lexical Access

The procedure of measuring speed based on the information stored in long term memory. The speed with which we recover information from long-term memory is in fact speed of lexical access. Hunt lexical accessspeedisconsidered as a componentofintelligence. Letter matching task was classified within elementary cognitive tasks (ECT).

For ECTS are without content and relatively effect of academic experience, many researchers suggest that the relationship between the speed of performing these tasks and intelligence reflect the basic properties of the nervous system: transmission time, while nerve conduction and efficiency.

The ECTsperformanceisaffected by higher cognitive processes such as attention. Moreover, the studies of the relationship between ECTs speed and intelligence were conducted in industrialized Western countries. In fact, the culture of Western countries gives great importance to the time and speed of performance. Therefore these  people  are more likely to perform tasks requiring speed which affects the performance of ECTs. Thus, it seems that ECTs measure performance components for subject of western countries. However, ECTs may measure something different for the non-Western countries, which does not confirm in its culture on the speed of performance and rarely perform tasks under time pressure; it seems that the same ECTs measure metacognitive components in non-Western countries. Based on this argument, the validity of ECTs as culture- free may be questionable.

VanderVijer (1997) for studies of cognition across cultures, found that “even cognitively simple tasks have characteristics that give rise to cross-national performance differences. It could be speculated that these include familiarity with stimuli, response procedures, and testing situations in general (Van der Vijer, 1997). They found the expected significant speed – intelligence relationships, which did not differ significantly between the cultures. However, Neubauer and Benishke, (2002) referred to that they observe significant cultural differences in average performance.

Some thesis arising out of tests

There have been many tests on the factors affecting the speed of introducing the vocabulary with students who had English as second language. The instrumentsthatwereusedweredifferent.In a similarcasewithour students perform the task type English name matching, which is used here, contains the same four letters used by Posner and Mitchell (1967): AB C, and E in both italics and more lower-case. Posner and Mitchell (1967) classified them as: ‘physically’ identical (eg, AA), ‘formally identical (eg, Bb). The letters were written by 14 Times New Roman Font Bold.

BecausesomeAlbanianletters differ from the English alphabet we used 16 letters in the Albanian version of office paper match (cc, Z Z, N NJ, D DH, X XH, S SH, T TH).

Half of the participants perform the Albanian version of letter matching first and the English version of letter matching secondly. The other half of participants performs the English version of letter matching first and the Albanian version of letter matching secondly. Viewing distance was approximately 60 cm; subject’s heads were not restrained, but viewing distance was measured and adjusted before each set of trials.

PosnerandMitchell (1967) employed two forms of a visual letter matching task: physical matching and name matching. These tasks were used to study the speed of lexical access to information which stored in long term memory. According to Jensen (1982), discrimination of a physical difference does not require access to a prior learned semantic code, whereas discrimination of semantic differences requires access to information stored in long term memory. So, we used name matching task to investigate possible differences within native Albanian speakers on name matching tasks (Albanian and English). We were looking for differences since Albanian is the participants dominant language.

The resultsofPosnerand Mitchell (1967) showed that on name matching tasks ‘same’ responses to physically identical letters (e.g., AA) were faster than to letters simply having the same name (e.g., Aa). These results suggest that the response to physically identical letters, which must have the same name, can be based solely upon the initial visual codes rather than the slower forming acoustic codes required for such pairs as Aa. The reaction times for physically identical letters were faster than reaction times for nominally identical letters in both types of name matching tasks.

The patternof the correlation between nominally identical letters matching and physically identical letters matching varied with the language of the task. Although there wasn’t significant correlation between nominally identical Albanian letters matching and physically identical Albanian letters the pattern of correlation between the two tasks varied with the experimental condition. There wasn’t significant correlation between nominally identical Albanian letters matching and physically identical English letters matching  On contrary, there were significant correlations between physically identical Albanian letters matching with physically identical English letters matching  and with nominally identical English letters matching.

Reactiontimesforcorrect responses were analyzed and the results reveal a significant main effect of the task’s type for reaction times. Pairwise comparison tests showed that the differences between Albanian physically identical letters vs. Albanian nominally identical letters, and Albanian nominally identical letters vs. English physically identical letters is insignificant. However, the differences between other conditions were significant.There was also a significant difference between the two types of name matching tasks.

The patternof the correlation between nominally identical letters matching and physically identical letters matching varied with the language of the task. Although there wasn’t significant correlation between nominally identical Albanian letters matching and physically identical Albanian letters the pattern of correlation between the two tasks varied with the experimental condition. On contrary, there were significant correlations between physically identical Albanian letters matching with physically identical English letters matching  and with nominally identical English letters matching.

Conclusion

As notedabove, there is no significant difference between reaction times for Albanian physically identical letters and Albanian nominally identical letters. However, there is a significant difference between reaction times for English physically identical letters and English nominally identical letters. Thus, the relationship between the pairs of letters solely cannot explain the speed of lexical access. Accordingly, we conclude that this finding is not surprising given the subjects were native Albanian speakers, and the frequent exposure to letters that individuals in literate cultures experience daily, which make them skilled expertise in using letters. This mean that the processes of processing information that related to Albanian letters become automatic, and the response to them can be based solely upon the initial visual codes. On contrary, for native Albanian speakers, naming the English letters require more processes and more efforts, which appear in increasing reaction times as compared to naming Albanian letters.

On the otherhand, the pattern of correlations between subject’s reaction times varied with type of name matching tasks. These results suggest that subjects were consistently modifying their strategies according to the type of matching task, and that there could be a common underlying process mediating the performance of subjects on the type of matching task. Therefore, for native Albanian speakers, naming Albanian letters may be based on performance components, while naming English letters may be based on metacognitive components.

In conclusion, resultsfrom the present study indicate that the speed of naming letters varied with the type of matching task. Thus, the speed of lexical access does not necessarily emerge as a consequence of relationship between the letters pairs. The results entirely reflect the possibility that the processes underlying performing ECTs are affected by some aspects of culture. Therefore, the validity of ECTs as culture-free may be questionable.

References

1. Burgund, E.d., & Abernathy, E.A. (2008). Letter-specific processing in children and adults matched for reading level. Acta Psychologica, 129 , 66–71.
2. Jensen, A. R. (2006). Clocking the mind: Mental chronometry and individual differences. Oxford: Elsevier. Lachmann, T., & van Leeuwen, C. (2004). Negative congruence effects in letter and pseudo-letter recognition:The role of similarity and response conflict. Cognitive Processing, 5, 239–248.
3. Neubauer, A.C. & Benischke, C. (2002). A cross-cultural comparison of the relationship between intelligence and speed of information processing in Austria vs. Guatemala. Psychologische Beiträge, 44, 521-534.
4. Posner, M. J., & Mitchell, R. F. (1967). Chronometric analysis of classification. PsychologicalReview, 74, 392– 409.
5. Van de Vijver, F. J. R. (1997). Meta-analysisofcross-culturalcomparisonsofcognitive test performance. JournalofCross-CulturalPsychology, 28, 678-709.[schema type=»book» name=»Lexical Access to Albanian and English Letters» description=»In recent years, greater attention has been paid to speed of lexical access. Though the research on vocabulary knowledge has focused mainly on vocabulary size, having the speed access to words and their meanings is almost as important in performance. The importance has been recognized in reading research where the speed lexical access is one of the most fundamental processes for fluent reading. Along with vocabulary size and organization, the speed of lexical access is now considered a dimension of vocabulary knowledge. Despite its importance, it is still an dispueted issue. Thispapertries to examine the role of cultural differences in the speed of lexical access. We employed two kinds of name matching task: Albanian and English types.Also the cultural aspects have a role in the speed of lexical access, the level of society we live in is a factor in the speed of lexical access.» author=»Kozeta Hyso, Zamira Alimema» publisher=»БАСАРАНОВИЧ ЕКАТЕРИНА» pubdate=»2017-03-09″ edition=»ЕВРАЗИЙСКИЙ СОЮЗ УЧЕНЫХ_27.06.2015_06(15)» ebook=»yes» ]