Languages differ in the degree of ccovariance between spelling and corresponding sound patterns. Despite the variation across languages, evidence from new and particularly sensitive paradigms is reversing the conventional understanding that phonology plays a limited role in skilled reading, particularly of orthographically 'deep' languages such as Chinese, Hebrew, and English. The studies proposed in this project are directed at the mechanisms for deriving phonology from a words orthographic form and using phonology to determine a word's pronunciation and meaning. They are shaped significantly by the phonological coherence hypothesis; Phonological representations achieve resolution faster, and reach states of stability that are greater, than other linguistic representations. Consequently, phonology provides both the earliest and the primary constraint on lexical dynamics. The experiments are directed at uncovering fundamental aspects of phonology's role in reading by studying word recognition in contrasting orthographies; the shallow orthographies of Turkish, Serbo-Croatian and Spanish and the deeper orthographies of English, Hebrew and Chinese. A network dynamics will be pursued that is capable of accommodating the characteristic results of each orthography. In addition, functional magnetic imaging will be used to determine cortical regions subserving components of the word recognition process.
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