Syllable Congruency Effect In Visual Word Recognition In L2 English Learners

The issue of the interaction between the orthographic processing and the phonetic processing in word processing has been discussed for a long time in psycholinguistics,especially the syllable congruent effect in visual word recognition.Such effect in L2 learners has gained more attention in recent years and has became the heated topic in related studies.The aim of this study was to investigate the syllable congruency effect in visual word recognition of English and to analyse the possible factors which may make an effect on such effect.To do so,the syllable congruency effect was examined in the visual word spotting task combined with the masked priming paradigm in 55 Chinese native speakers,who study English as the second language.Seventy-two dis-syllabic pseudo target words,half with a real three-letterword and the other half without a real three-letter-word,were preceded by a briefly presented a prime(50 ms)that could be syllable congruent(e.g.,butave [bu-time]),syllable incongruent(e.g.,butave [but-son]),or unrelated(e.g.,bu-tave [al-duce])with the first syllable of the targets.The experiment was conducted after grouping the experimental materials using a Latin square design.Results showed a reliable syllable congruency effect in L2 English learners because there was a significant difference in reaction time between the syllable congruent targets and the syllable incongruent targets.It suggests that syllables are automatically activated as an important processing unit in visual word recognition and have an impact on visual word recognition in L2 English learners.These results are discussed in the Bimodal Interactive Activation Model and the Interactive Activation Models Including Syllables.And the factors,including the language proficiency,the difference in research tasks,the orthographic transparency and the syllable frequency,which may have an effect on the syllable congruency effect,are also analyzed on the basis of previous studies.