Athanasios Protopapas

• Martinez, Dalia; Georgiou, George K.; Inoue, Tomohiro; Parrila, Rauno & Protopapas, Athanassios (2026). The genesis of reading fluency in beginning readers. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. ISSN 0022-0965. 272. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2026.106593. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Although reading fluency plays a crucial role in reading comprehension, little is known about its early development. In this study, we first aimed to replicate Hudson et al.’s (2009, 2012) model of reading fluency development among beginning readers and, second, to expand it by incorporating components of articulation rate, sub-lexical orthographic knowledge, and reading accuracy, all of which are theoretically linked to reading fluency development. Three hundred and thirty English-speaking Grade 1 students (51.5% female; Mage = 74.82 months; SD = 3.60) were assessed at three time points (September [T1], January [T2], and May [T3]). At T1, we administered measures of rapid automatized naming (RAN), processing speed, phonemic blending fluency, and letter-sound fluency, at T2, measures of phonogram fluency and sub-lexical orthographic knowledge, and, finally, at T3, word reading fluency, nonword reading fluency, and text reading fluency. Using path analysis, we tested three models: a baseline model based on Hudson et al.’s model and two expanded models that included the additional measures. Our results replicated the core relations proposed by Hudson et al. and further demonstrated significant contributions from sub-lexical orthographic knowledge and reading accuracy to text reading fluency through word reading fluency. These findings are consistent with theoretical frameworks such as Ehri’s (2014) orthographic mapping framework and the lexical quality hypothesis (Perfetti, 2007), showing the contributions but also limitations of the components of the reading fluency model.

• Romero, Sandra; Georgiou, George K.; Altani, Angeliki & Protopapas, Athanassios (2026). Examining the Serial Advantage in Fluent and Dysfluent Readers. Dyslexia. ISSN 1076-9242. 32(3). doi: 10.1002/dys.70033. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We examined how the relation between serial and discrete reading/naming rate reveals cognitive processes that underlie reading fluency success and failure. Our sample included 87 children scoring above the 35th percentile (fluent readers) and 36 scoring below the 16th percentile (dysfluent readers) on a word‐reading fluency test. All children were in Grade 3 and had adequate reading accuracy (standard score above the 25th percentile). The experimental tasks included serial and discrete reading of one‐syllable, high‐frequency words and serial and discrete digit naming. The results showed that all children performed better in the serial than the discrete naming/reading tasks. The fluent readers outperformed the dysfluent readers in all tasks. Moreover, among the fluent readers, serial reading was best predicted by serial naming. In contrast, serial reading was best predicted by discrete word reading among the dysfluent readers. Overall, the findings indicate that among readers with adequate accuracy, differences in fluency are associated with whether multiword reading aligns more strongly with serial naming or with individual word recognition, suggesting that dysfluent performance may reflect greater reliance on item‐by‐item processing and reduced efficiency in coordinating processing across successive words.

• Zelihic, Dzan; Ziaka, Laoura; McMurray, Bob; Altani, Angeliki; Simonsen, Kristin & Protopapas, Athanassios (2026). Children's visual word recognition is hampered by adjacent stimuli. Cognition. ISSN 0010-0277. 274. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2026.106581. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Although skilled readers make use of information about words adjacent to the fixated word, developing readers are known to be limited in their uptake of parafoveal information, leading to the expectation that they may be entirely insensitive to the presence of adjacent stimuli. However, lack of benefit from nearby items does not imply that those items cannot negatively impact the recognition process. Here we report two experiments with 62 Norwegian children attending Grade 2 and 141 in Grade 5 using a modified version of the visual world paradigm with masked flanked visual word targets. Compared to a baseline condition with no flankers, we found that the presence of flanking words or unfamiliar-font strings interfered with lexical activation of the foveated target word; in contrast, strings of repeated symbols had no effect. The results were very similar for the two grades, except that the more advanced readers also exhibited an interaction of flanking condition with target word frequency, specifically, smaller frequency effects when flanked by words; these were interpreted as foveal load effects. The findings indicate that adjacent stimuli are to some extent simultaneously processed along with the foveated word and strongly interfere with it, from the earliest stages and throughout reading development. We propose that management of interference from adjacent words is a major factor modulating the development and expression of reading skill.

• Zelihic, Dzan; Kyriakidou, Stefania; Ziaka, Laoura; McMurray, Bob & Protopapas, Athanassios (2026). Interference from adjacent words in visual word recognition. Journal of Memory and Language. ISSN 0749-596X. 149. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2026.104761. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Recent findings show that lexical activation is slower when words are surrounded by other words, as they always are in natural reading. Here we focus on the proposal that this is due to direct interference from adjacent words that are processed in parallel. In three experiments using a flanked masked visual word adaptation of the visual world paradigm with adult skilled readers, we probed the spatial conditions for interference. Target words were flashed at fixation for 75 ms flanked by other words before being masked; we studied gaze shifts to the image (out of four displayed) corresponding to the target. We found that interference increases with proximity and is asymmetric (stronger from the right side). In the third experiment we included an image for one of the flanker words and we obtained direct evidence for lexical activation of the right-side flanker. Intriguingly, the strong asymmetry of lexical activation stands in contrast to a much weaker asymmetry in overall interference, indicating that different levels of representation are differentially involved in the online interactions among adjacent words. In all, we take our findings to constitute strong evidence for distributed attention around fixation differentially affecting diverse word processing stages, calling for a reconsideration of word recognition models that posit independent processing of individual words. The findings also suggest that the masked flanked visual word visual world paradigm is relevant for the study of attentional allocation during reading.

• Loui, Sofia & Protopapas, Athanassios (2026). Orthography and semantics in processing morphologically complex Greek words. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. ISSN 2327-3798. doi: 10.1080/23273798.2026.2634796. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Previous studies have shown that the recognition of morphologically complex Greek nouns and verbs is facilitated by morphologically related primes, both derivational and inflectional, and at both early and late stages of processing. This raises the question of whether such facilitation reflects genuine morphological processing or merely similarity in form and/or meaning. To address this issue, we examined the effects of orthographic and semantic similarity on the processing of morphologically complex Greek words during visual word recognition. Using a primed lexical decision task with short and long stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs), we found no facilitation by orthographically or semantically related primes at short SOA, whereas at long SOA, semantically related primes produced significant facilitation. These effects were smaller than previously reported morphological effects. Overall, the results suggest that morphological facilitation in Greek cannot be fully explained by orthographic or semantic overlap but reflects early, explicit morphological processing mechanisms.

• Siegelman, Noam; Schroeder, Sascha; Bao, Yaqian Borogjoon; Acartürk, Cengiz; Agrawal, Niket & Bolliger, Lena S. [Vis alle 49 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2025). Wave 2 of the Multilingual Eye-Movement Corpus (MECO): New text reading data across languages. Scientific Data. 12. doi: 10.1038/s41597-025-05453-3. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This paper reports the Wave 2 expansion of the Multilingual Eye-Movement Corpus (MECO), a collaborative multi-lab project collecting eye-tracking data on text reading in a variety of languages. The present expansion comes with new eye-tracking data of N = 654 from 13 languages, collected in 16 labs over 15 countries, including in several languages that have little to no representation in current eye-tracking studies on reading. MECO also contains demographic, language use, and other individual differences data. This paper makes available the first-language reading data of MECO Wave 2 and incorporates reliability estimates of all tests at the participant and item level, as well as other methods of data validation. It also reports the descriptive statistics on all languages, including comparisons with prior similar data, and outlines directions for potential reuse.

• Loui, Sofia & Protopapas, Athanassios (2025). Transposed-letter effects in processing morphologically complex Greek words. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (QJEP). ISSN 1747-0218. doi: 10.1177/17470218251359787. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We examined whether and when the morphemic structure of Greek suffixed words is accessed during visual word recognition using a masked priming lexical decision experiment combined with the transposed-letter (TL) paradigm. We hypothesized that, if morphological structure is accessed after letter-position coding, then the orthographic disruption caused by letter transposition would affect priming more severely when transposed letters straddle morphemic boundaries than when they belong to the same morpheme. Results showed that Greek readers were able to recognize morphologically complex Greek target words when morphemes were disrupted by letter transpositions regardless of the position of transpositions (morpheme-internal, at morpheme edge, or across morphemic boundaries). Priming from the TL primes was significantly less than priming from intact morphological primes observed previously. The equal magnitude of processing costs incurred by transpositions in all positions indicates that any alteration of the internal structure of morphologically complex words is similarly detrimental, consistent with the important role of morphemes in a morphologically rich language. Results suggest that morphologically complex Greek words undergo a morphological decomposition process that interacts with orthographic TL effects, indicating that access to the internal structure of these words takes place early in visual word recognition, before letter position coding.

• Ziaka, Laoura & Protopapas, Athanassios (2025). Dynamic adjustment of the eye-voice span and articulation duration in the course of multi-item naming tasks: Evidence for lockout scheduling. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory and Cognition. ISSN 0278-7393. doi: 10.1037/xlm0001500. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Studies of cognitive control using tasks with isolated (single-item) vs. multiple (multi-item) item presentation have shown that multi-item tasks may be more effective in capturing limitations of the cognitive control system arising from capacity constraints. Importantly, during multi-item tasks, performance decreases but does not collapse, consistent with effective management of cognitive overload. This has been interpreted by positing a strategic shift from a more parallel to a more serial processing, whereby the processing of the current item is prioritized over upcoming items, termed lockout scheduling. Here, we investigate this proposal by examining within-task modulations of eye-voice span (EVS) measures and articulation duration in multi-item color naming tasks with and without internal interference (i.e., incongruent and neutral Stroop conditions). We hypothesized that lockout scheduling would manifest itself across measures and conditions as the task progresses and cognitive overload emerges. The results showed dynamic changes in both EVS and articulation measures as a function of time-on-task, consistent with the gradual implementation of a lockout scheduling strategy in response to emerging cognitive overload. The observed patterns indicate that the shift from a more parallel to a more serial processing is not an all-or-none phenomenon but a dynamic interplay between gaze, voice, and covert (i.e., parafoveal) attention, affecting online decisions about spatial distance, timing, and processing resource allocation.

• Ziaka, Laoura; Zelihic, Dzan; McMurray, Bob; Baxelbaum, Keith; Simonsen, Kristin & Protopapas, Athanasios (2025). Visual word recognition is impeded by adjacent words. Journal of Memory and Language. ISSN 0749-596X. 143. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2025.104641. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We report two experiments demonstrating that visual word recognition is impeded by the presence of nearby stimuli, especially adjacent words. Reading research has converged on a consensus that skilled readers control their attention to make use of information from adjacent (primarily upcoming) words, increasing reading efficiency. Other lines of research seem to point to potential interference from nearby items, yet this has not been investigated at the critical lexical level. To specifically target lexical activation, here we employ a novel variant of the visual world paradigm with masked (75 ms) flanked visual word targets, contrasting five flanker conditions across two experiments, namely none, repeated symbols, unknown font strings, pseudowords, and words. Analysis of multiple observed variables from 60 and 58 adult Norwegian speakers showed strong interference—compared to no flankers—for all flanker conditions except the repeated symbols. Interference increased with additional levels of possible flanker processing, and was greatest for higher-frequency word targets, consistent with rapid dynamic modulation of attentional breadth. Our findings demonstrate that nearby words interfere with lexical activation of the fixated word and call for a more nuanced approach to the role of preview in fluent reading. We conclude that skilled reading involves a constant complex interplay between the drive toward efficiency, which requires a broad attentional field, and the need to shield processing from interference, which limits attentional breadth.

• Kuperman, Victor; Schroeder, Sascha; Acartürk, Cengiz; Agrawal, Niket; Alexandre, Dominick M. & Bollinger, Lena [Vis alle 49 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2025). New data on text reading in English as a second language: The Wave 2 expansion of the Multilingual Eye-Movements Corpus (MECO). Studies in Second Language Acquisition. ISSN 0272-2631. 47(2), s. 677–695. doi: 10.1017/S0272263125000105. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This paper reports an expansion of the English as a second language (L2) component of the Multilingual Eye Movement Corpus (MECO L2), an international database of eye movements during text reading. While the previous Wave 1 of the MECO project (Kuperman et al., 2023) contained English as a L2 reading data from readers with 12 different first language (L1) backgrounds, the newly collected dataset adds eye-tracking data on English text reading from 13 distinct L1 backgrounds (N = 660) as well as participants’ scores on component skills of English proficiency and information about their demographics and language background and use. The paper reports reliability estimates, descriptive statistics, and correlational analyses as means to validate the expansion dataset. Consistent with prior literature and the MECO Wave 1, trends in the MECO Wave 2 data include a weak correlation between reading comprehension and oculomotor measures of reading fluency and a greater L1-L2 contrast in reading fluency than reading comprehension. Jointly with Wave 1, the MECO project includes English reading data from more than 1,200 readers representing a diversity of native writing systems (logographic, abjad, abugida, and alphabetic) and 19 distinct L1 backgrounds. We provide multiple pointers to new venues of how L2 reading researchers can mine this rich publicly available dataset.

• Protopapas, Athanassios; Katopodi, Katerina; Altani, Angeliki; Kolotoura, Iliana; Ziaka, Laoura & Georgiou, George K (2024). A Process-Oriented Analysis of Speech and Silent Intervals in Responses to Serial Naming Tasks. Journal of Educational Psychology. ISSN 0022-0663. doi: 10.1037/edu0000900. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In this study we present a framework for conceptualizing and analyzing responses to serial naming (RAN) tasks, in which participants sequentially name a set of stimuli that are simultaneously presented in an array format. Our aim is to better understand how these tasks are processed and why they are associated with reading skills, particularly word reading fluency. We analyzed responses by 298 Greek children in Grades 1, 3, and 5 to serial and discrete naming of digits, dice, objects, number words, and words. We measured the durations of silent and speech intervals per item in each task and grade, and tested predictions about their relations based on a hypothesis of two overlapping processing stages. We found that articulation times were longer in the serial tasks, further modulated by task demands. Total times were faster for serial than for discrete tasks, and the differences between the two (termed serial advantage) were increasingly associated with the duration of speech intervals, consistent with efficient scheduling. Serial naming rate approached or exceeded the limits imposed by processing time (operationalized as discrete onset latency), consistent with increasing processing overlap. These patterns were primarily observed for digits, number words, and—to some extent—dice, after Grade 1. Object naming seemed to pose different cognitive demands, stably across grades. Word reading exhibited the greatest differences between grades, consistent with rapid development of automaticity. We interpret this pattern of findings within a cascaded processing framework, in which performance is determined by the efficiency of cognitive scheduling of successive operations, constrained by susceptibility to interference from adjacent items. We propose that reading fluency is predicted by serial naming because it is also largely governed by the same scheduling constraints.

• Romero, Sandra; Georgiou, George K; Altani, Angeliki; Gorgun, Guher & Protopapas, Athanassios (2024). Beyond Word Recognition: The Role of Efficient Sequential Processing in Word- and Text-Reading Fluency Development. Scientific Studies of Reading. ISSN 1088-8438. doi: 10.1080/10888438.2024.2360189. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Purpose: Previous studies examining the inter-relations between serial and discrete naming with reading have found that the ability to efficiently process multiple items presented in a sequence (indexed by serial naming) is a unique predictor of word- and text-reading fluency. However, conclusions have been tempered by the concurrent nature of the available data and the uniformly low demands of the materials (words and texts). Here we go beyond previous studies by using more varied materials to examine the relations of serial and discrete naming with the discrete reading of words and the serial reading of word lists and connected text over time. Method: Two hundred and eight English-speaking Canadian children (51% female, Mage = 7.2 years) were followed from Grade 2 to Grade 5 and were assessed on serial and discrete digit naming and serial and discrete word reading at both measurement points. Results: Strong associations between discrete naming and discrete reading already from Grade 2 indicated that short a

• Viersen, Sietske van; Altani, Angeliki; Jong, Peter F. De & Protopapas, Athanassios (2024). Between-word processing and text-level skills contributing to fluent reading of (non)word lists and text. Reading and writing. ISSN 0922-4777. doi: 10.1007/s11145-024-10533-8. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Abstract Recent studies have shown that fluent reading of word lists requires additional skills beyond efficient recognition of individual words. This study examined the specific contribution of between-word processing (sequential processing efficiency, indexed by serial digit RAN) and subskills related to text-level processing (vocabulary and syntactic skills) to a wide range of reading fluency tasks, while accounting for within-word processes (i.e., those involved in phonological recoding, orthographic decoding, and sight word reading). The sample included 139 intermediate-level (Grade 3, n  = 78) and more advanced (Grade 5, n  = 61) readers of Dutch. Fluency measures included simple and complex lists of words and nonwords, and a complex text. Data were analyzed through hierarchical regressions and commonality analyses. The findings confirm the importance of between-word processing for fluent reading and extend evidence from simple word lists and texts to complex word lists and texts, and simple and complex lists of nonwords. The findings hold for both intermediate-level and more advanced readers and, as expected, the contribution of between-word processing increased with reading-skill level. Effects of vocabulary were generally absent, aside from a small effect on text reading fluency in Grade 3. No effects of syntactic skills were found, even in more advanced readers. The results support the idea that once efficient individual word recognition is in place, further fluency development is driven by more efficient between-word processing. The findings also confirm that vocabulary may be less prominent in processing mechanisms underlying fluent word identification in transparent orthographies, across reading levels.

• Diamanti, Vassiliki; Grande, German Garcia; Protopapas, Athanassios; Melby-Lervåg, Monica & Lervåg, Arne (2024). Preschool Morphological Awareness and Developmental Change in Early Reading Ability. Scientific Studies of Reading. ISSN 1088-8438. doi: 10.1080/10888438.2024.2370843. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Purpose This longitudinal study examined the contribution of preschool morphological awareness to word reading skills and reading comprehension, as well as to the developmental change of reading ability beyond other well-established oral language and cognitive predictors. A distinction was made between the domains of inflectional and derivational morphology. Method Two hundred and fifty-nine Norwegian-speaking children (46% female) with a mean age of 5.5 years were assessed in preschool on language measures and again in Grades 1 and 3 on measures of word reading accuracy and fluency and in Grades 3 and 4 on reading comprehension. We fit latent change score models with preschool predictors using parceling to control for measurement error. Results We found a unique contribution of preschool morphological awareness to reading comprehension in Grade 3, but no unique contribution to Grade 1 decoding. Neither awareness of inflections nor awareness of derivations predicted developmental change in word reading fluency between Grades 1 and 3 or change in reading comprehension between Grades 3 and 4 beyond the effect of control variables. Conclusion Our findings confirm the relevance of morphological awareness only for early attainment in reading comprehension and highlight the importance of accounting for measurement error in studying associations among variables aiming to discover specific contributions.

• Grande, German; Diamanti, Vassiliki; Protopapas, Athanassios; Melby-Lervåg, Monica & Lervåg, Arne (2024). The development of morphological awareness and vocabulary: What influences what? Applied Psycholinguistics. ISSN 0142-7164. doi: 10.1017/S0142716424000213. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The awareness of words’ morphological structure has been thought to allow generalizing meaning to other, similarly constructed words. Conversely, a large vocabulary is thought to facilitate the recognition of words’ morphological regularities, thereby contributing to morphological awareness. For this reason, morphological awareness and vocabulary have been suggested to be reciprocally associated across development. We followed 242 (girls = 119) Norwegian preschoolers (Mage = 5.5 years) from preschool through Grade 2 and examined the cross-lagged relations between morphological awareness (inflections and derivations) and vocabulary (receptive and expressive). Our results confirm that the traditional cross-lagged panel model shows significant cross-lagged relations between morphological awareness and vocabulary, as previous studies have shown. However, no cross-lagged relations were found when we accounted for longitudinal measured stability through a cross-lagged panel model with lag-2 paths or unmeasured stability through the random intercept cross-lagged panel model. We found that approximately 50% of the variation in morphology and vocabulary was due to highly stable and invariant factors across grades. We discuss how the significant cross-lagged relations found in previous studies could have been due to their not accounting for the right type of stability when using longitudinal panel data.

• Romero, Sandra; Georgiou, George K; Altani, Angeliki & Protopapas, Athanassios (2024). Effects of word frequency and length in discrete and serial word reading. Reading and writing. ISSN 0922-4777. s. 1–32. doi: 10.1007/s11145-024-10620-w. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  When encountering sequences of familiar words (“serial reading”), skilled readers are thought to take advantage of the presentation format by processing multiple words simultaneously in a “cascaded” manner. This is possible when individual words are read “by sight,” similar to naming letters or digits. Accordingly, previous studies have shown that as readers become more experienced, fluent reading increasingly parallels serial naming of familiar symbols, while reading individual words (“discrete reading”) parallels discrete naming. However, most studies have focused on high-frequency, short words, which are more amenable to cascaded processing; different performance patterns across presentation formats (serial vs. discrete) would be expected for longer, less frequent words. Therefore, in this study, we examined how word frequency and length influence the effect of word presentation format and the relation of word reading with serial and discrete digit naming. We tested 201 Spanish-speaking children in Grades 2 and 5 on serial and discrete digit naming and serial and discrete word reading of eight sets of words varying in length (two vs. four syllables) and frequency (high vs. low). Results showed that the serial word presentation format benefitted reading rates across word sets, particularly for short, high-frequency words and more strongly among fifth graders. Furthermore, the difference between serial and discrete reading and its interaction with word length and frequency were more closely associated with serial naming than discrete naming. The pattern of findings supports the hypothesis that readers employ cascaded processing to the extent individual words in the serial reading task are automatized.

• Hoff, David Armas; Amland, Tonje; Melby-Lervåg, Monica; Lervåg, Arne & Protopapas, Athanassios (2023). Early rapid naming longitudinally predicts shared variance in reading and arithmetic fluency. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. ISSN 0022-0965. 231. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105656. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  A number of cognitive factors have been suggested to underlie development in reading and arithmetic skills. Although the two domains are strongly linked, only a few studies have investigated the processes that are shared between them during the early school years. Rapid automatized naming (RAN) has been identified as a strong predictor of a common fluency factor in reading and arithmetic. In the current study with 232 Norwegian children, we examined how RAN in preschool and Grade 1 relates to the shared and nonshared variance in arithmetic fluency and reading fluency in Grade 3. Furthermore, we examined whether related processing skills (phoneme awareness, working memory, speed of processing, and symbol knowledge) can account for the relationship between RAN and shared fluency—or if they predict variance that is unique to each domain. Our results show that RAN in both preschool and Grade 1 is a strong predictor of shared variance between reading fluency and arithmetic fluency measured several years later, whereas other predictors mainly relate to the nonshared parts of variance in the fluency outcomes. That is, control variables with the theoretical potential to explain some of RAN’s relation to the overlap between reading and arithmetic fluency do not in fact account for this relationship. Our findings provide a starting point for future investigations of the mechanisms of rapid naming.

• Ziaka, Laoura & Protopapas, Athanassios (2023). Cognitive Control Beyond Single-Item Tasks: Insights From Pupillometry, Gaze, and Behavioral Measures. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. ISSN 0096-1523. 49(7). doi: 10.1037/xhp0001127. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Cognitive control has been typically examined using single-item tasks. This has implications for the generalizability of theories of control implementation. Previous studies have revealed that different control demands are posed by tasks depending on whether they present stimuli individually (i.e., single-item) or simultaneously in array format (i.e., multi-item). In the present study, we tracked within-task performance in single-item and multi-item Stroop tasks using simultaneous pupillometry, gaze, and behavioral response measures, aiming to explore the implications of format differences for cognitive control. The results indicated within-task performance decline in the multi-item version of the Stroop task, accompanied by pupil constriction and dwell time increase, in both the incongruent and the neutral condition. In contrast, no performance decline or dwell time increase was observed in the course of the single-item version of the task. We interpret these findings in terms of capacity constraints on cognitive control, with implications for cognitive control research, and highlight the need for better understanding of the cognitive demands of multi-item tasks.

• Georgiou, George K; Tao, Sha; Romero, Sandra; Ma, Leilei; Chen, Rui & Li, Yuanyuan [Vis alle 9 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2023). Serial and discrete naming and reading in Chinese first graders: Testing predictions from the cascaded processing hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. ISSN 0022-0965. 231. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105650. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Recent studies have suggested that—beyond automaticity and prosody—reading fluency involves parallel processing of adjacent items presented in a sequence, termed “cascaded processing.” To date, most studies examining cascaded processing have been conducted in alphabetic orthographies. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the cascaded processing hypothesis in Chinese. A total of 119 Grade 1 Chinese children (61 boys and 58 girls; Mage = 7.30 years, SD = 0.31) were assessed on serial and discrete naming of digits as well as on serial and discrete naming of high-frequency one- and two-character words and low-frequency one-character words presented with pinyin. Results of hierarchical regression analyses showed, first, that serial digit naming was a unique predictor of discrete naming of low-frequency one-character words and two-character words, but not of high-frequency one-character words. Second, serial digit naming was a unique predictor of reading of high-frequency one- and two-character word reading after controlling for discrete word reading. These findings suggest that Chinese first graders process high-frequency characters holistically (similar to simple digits), which then facilitates parallel processing of multiple stimuli when they are presented in a sequence.

• Poulsen, Mads; Protopapas, Athanassios & Juul, Holger (2023). How RAN stimulus type and repetition affect RAN’s relation with decoding efficiency and reading comprehension. Reading and writing. ISSN 0922-4777. 37, s. 89–102. doi: 10.1007/s11145-023-10421-7. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Purpose: This study investigated how correlations between rapid automatized naming (RAN) and reading depend on characteristics of the stimuli. RAN tasks using stimuli with high phonological demands were predicted to be the strongest correlates of decoding efficiency, while high semantic demands were predicted to lead to stronger correlations with comprehension. Method: At two time points, 132 Grade 2 children completed four different RAN versions, two using letter stimuli (low semantic load) and two using object stimuli (high semantic load). Both types of stimuli were used in either a repeated version, where a set of four items were repeated multiple times (low semantic load), or in a unique version, where each item appeared only once (high semantic load). Decoding efficiency and reading comprehension were assessed in Grade 5. Results: Analyses showed that confirmatory factor models with separate factors for each version provided better fit than grouping factors according to time point. Repetition (lowering semantic load) increased the longitudinal association between RAN objects and decoding efficiency. There was a tendency for conditions with higher semantic load to correlate more strongly with reading comprehension after control for decoding efficiency, but the differences were not significant. Conclusion: The results indicate that increasing semantic load weakens the relationship with decoding efficiency.

• Kuperman, Victor; Siegelman, Noam; Schroeder, Sascha; Acartürk, Cengiz; Alexeeva, Svetlana & Amenta, Simona [Vis alle 30 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2022). Text reading in English as a second language: Evidence from the Multilingual Eye-Movements Corpus. Studies in Second Language Acquisition. ISSN 0272-2631. doi: 10.1017/S0272263121000954. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Abstract Research into second language (L2) reading is an exponentially growing field. Yet, it still has a relatively short supply of comparable, ecologically valid data from readers representing a variety of first languages (L1). This article addresses this need by presenting a new data resource called MECO L2 (Multilingual Eye Movements Corpus), a rich behavioral eye-tracking record of text reading in English as an L2 among 543 university student speakers of 12 different L1s. MECO L2 includes a test battery of component skills of reading and allows for a comparison of the participants’ reading performance in their L1 and L2. This data resource enables innovative large-scale cross-sample analyses of predictors of L2 reading fluency and comprehension. We first introduce the design and structure of the MECO L2 resource, along with reliability estimates and basic descriptive analyses. Then, we illustrate the utility of MECO L2 by quantifying contributions of four sources to variability in L2 reading proficiency proposed in prior literature: reading fluency and comprehension in L1, proficiency in L2 component skills of reading, extralinguistic factors, and the L1 of the readers. Major findings included (a) a fundamental contrast between the determinants of L2 reading fluency versus comprehension accuracy, and (b) high within-participant consistency in the real-time strategy of reading in L1 and L2. We conclude by reviewing the implications of these findings to theories of L2 acquisition and outline further directions in which the new data resource may support L2 reading research.

• Georgiou, George K; Cho, Jeung-Ryeul; Deng, Ciping; Altani, Angeliki; Romero, Sandra & Kim, Min-Young [Vis alle 9 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2022). Cascaded processing in naming and reading: Evidence from Chinese and Korean. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. ISSN 0022-0965. 220. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2022.105416. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Previous studies have shown that the ability to simultaneously process multiple items when these appear in serial format (called “cascaded” processing) is an important element of reading fluency. However, most evidence in support of cascaded processing comes from studies conducted in European orthographies. Thus, the purpose of the current study was to examine whether the same findings generalize to nonlinear and nonalphabetic orthographies (i.e., Korean and Chinese). Serial and discrete naming of digits and objects were measured in a sample of 610 Chinese and Korean children from Grades 1, 3, 5, and 6. Children were also assessed on discrete word reading and on word- and text-reading fluency. Results of hierarchical regression analysis showed that discrete naming was the main predictor of discrete word reading in both languages as early as Grade 1. Serial digit naming was the main predictor of word-reading fluency across grades and languages. Finally, serial object naming made a unique contribution to word- and text-reading fluency in Chinese upper grades. Taken together, these findings suggest that, beyond accurate and fast word recognition, there is a universal multi-item (or cascaded) processing skill involved in serial naming and reading fluency.

• Viersen, Sietske van; Protopapas, Athanassios & Jong, Peter F. De (2022). Word- and Text-Level Processes Contributing to Fluent Reading of Word Lists and Sentences. Frontiers in Psychology. 12. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.789313. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In this study, we investigated how word- and text-level processes contribute to different types of reading fluency measures. We aimed to increase our understanding of the underlying processes necessary for fluent reading. The sample included 73 Dutch Grade 3 children, who were assessed on serial word reading rate (familiar words), word-list reading fluency (increasingly difficult words), and sentence reading fluency. Word-level processes were individual word recognition speed (discrete word reading) and sequential processing efficiency (serial digit naming). Text-level processes were receptive vocabulary and syntactic skills. The results showed that word- and text-level processes combined accounted for a comparable amount of variance in all fluency outcomes. Both word-level processes were moderate predictors of all fluency outcomes. However, vocabulary only moderately predicted sentence reading fluency, and syntactic skills merely contributed to sentence reading fluency indirectly through vocabulary. The findings indicate that sequential processing efficiency has a crucial role in reading fluency across various measures besides individual word recognition speed. Additionally, text-level processes come into play when complexity and context availability of fluency measures increases, but the exact timing requires further study. Findings are discussed in terms of future directions and their possible value for diagnostic assessment and intervention of reading difficulties.

• Ziaka, Laoura; Skoteinou, Dimitra & Protopapas, Athanassios (2022). Task format modulates the relationship between reading ability and Stroop Interference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. ISSN 0096-1523. doi: 10.1037/xhp0000964. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Previous research has shown that Stroop interference and reading ability are negatively related, with higher reading skills associated with less interference. A direct link between interference and the speed of inhibition of the task-irrelevant dimension (i.e., word) has been proposed to explain this relationship. If that were the case then it should apply regardless of the format of the Stroop task, that is, whether stimuli are presented simultaneously (multi-item version) or individually (single-item version). Here we examine data from six experiments using single-item and multi-item Stroop tasks and their relationship to reading measures. Our results indicate that reading performance is primarily related to the multi-item version of the Stroop task and not to the single-item version. These findings question the direct link between inhibition and interference as an interpretation of the reading–interference relationship. We argue that cascaded processing of successive items, and the ability to monitor and control this process, is the cognitive mechanism regulating the relationship between reading and interference. Therefore, we propose that the link between Stroop interference and reading is indirect, and their relationship is determined by the efficiency in temporally overlapping processing of adjacent items.

• Fotiadis, Fotis A. & Protopapas, Athanassios (2022). Immediate and Sustained Effects of Verbal Labels for Newly-Learned Categories. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (QJEP). ISSN 1747-0218. s. 1–17. doi: 10.1177/17470218221126659. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Labels for the categories have been found to facilitate learning by boosting accuracy. According to the label-feedback hypothesis this facilitation is due to a mechanism selectively sensitizing perceptual dimensions. To further investigate the label facilitation phenomenon, one group of participants in our study learned both named and hard-to-name artificial categories, in a novel, within-subjects design. Another group of participants was administered a—highly similar—paired-associate task purportedly not involving sensitization of dimensions. Results showed that labels boosted accuracy during learning, but only when learning to categorize—not when learning to associate. The label-feedback hypothesis posits that labels exert an influence also after new categories have been learned. To test for sustained effects of labels, we administered a post-learning visual discrimination task while monitoring participants’ eye movements and analyzing dwell time on the trained shapes. There was some indication of sustained effects of labels for newly-learned categories, but there was no effect following learning to associate. Our results suggest that labels for newly-learned categories have immediate effects during learning, and that the effects of labels may also be sustained during post-learning processing.

• Siegelman, Noam; Schroeder, Sascha; Acartürk, Cengiz; Ahn, Hee-Don; Alexeeva, Svetlana & Amenta, Simona [Vis alle 31 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2022). Expanding horizons of cross-linguistic research on reading: The Multilingual Eye-movement Corpus (MECO). Behavior Research Methods. ISSN 1554-351X. doi: 10.3758/s13428-021-01772-6. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Scientific studies of language behavior need to grapple with a large diversity of languages in the world and, for reading, a further variability in writing systems. Yet, the ability to form meaningful theories of reading is contingent on the availability of cross-linguistic behavioral data. This paper offers new insights into aspects of reading behavior that are shared and those that vary systematically across languages through an investigation of eye-tracking data from 13 languages recorded during text reading. We begin with reporting a bibliometric analysis of eye-tracking studies showing that the current empirical base is insufficient for cross-linguistic comparisons. We respond to this empirical lacuna by presenting the Multilingual Eye-Movement Corpus (MECO), the product of an international multi-lab collaboration. We examine which behavioral indices differentiate between reading in written languages, and which measures are stable across languages. One of the findings is that readers of different languages vary considerably in their skipping rate (i.e., the likelihood of not fixating on a word even once) and that this variability is explained by cross-linguistic differences in word length distributions. In contrast, if readers do not skip a word, they tend to spend a similar average time viewing it. We outline the implications of these findings for theories of reading. We also describe prospective uses of the publicly available MECO data, and its further development plans.

• Ziaka, Laoura & Protopapas, Athanassios (2022). Conflict Monitoring or Μulti-tasking? Tracking Within-Task Performance in Single-item and Multi-item Stroop Tasks. Acta Psychologica. ISSN 0001-6918. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103583. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Cognitive control is applied in situations that require overriding a habitual and automatic response. The conflict monitoring hypothesis and the Expected Value of Control (EVC) theory as its extension posit a control system responsible for detecting conflicting occasions and adapting to them dynamically within a task. Here we evaluate this prediction in two versions of one of the most popular tasks in cognitive control, namely the Stroop task. We hypothesized that nearby-items interference combines with task interference in the multi-item version effectively turning it into a multi-task that may challenge cognitive control. Adopting an alternative methodology tracking within-task performance, we compared the classical multi-item version of the Stroop task and its single-item counterpart in adults and children. The results revealed a within-task performance decline only in the multi-item version of the task, in both incongruent and neutral conditions, modulated by the presumed maturity of the control system. These findings suggest capacity constraints in control implementation and allocation under conditions requiring parallel execution of multiple cognitive tasks. Task complexity and demands seem to modulate effects on performance. We discuss implications for cognitive control as well as substantial concerns regarding the calculation and use of indices of interference based on the commonly used multi-item version of the Stroop task.

• Viersen, Sietske van; Protopapas, Athanassios; Georgiou, George K; Parrila, Rauno; Ziaka, Laoura & Jong, Peter F de (2021). Lexicality Effects on Orthographic Learning in Beginning and Advanced Readers of Dutch: An Eye-tracking Study. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (QJEP). ISSN 1747-0218. doi: 10.1177/17470218211047420. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Orthographic learning is the topic of many recent studies about reading, but much is still unknown about conditions that affect orthographic learning and their influence on reading fluency development over time. This study investigated lexicality effects on orthographic learning in beginning and relatively advanced readers of Dutch. Eye movements of 131 children in Grades 2 and 5 were monitored during an orthographic learning task. Children read sentences containing pseudowords or low-frequency real words that varied in number of exposures. We examined both offline learning outcomes (i.e., orthographic choice and spelling dictation) of target items and online gaze durations on target words. The results showed general effects of exposure, lexicality, and reading-skill level. Also, a two-way interaction was found between the number of exposures and lexicality when detailed orthographic representations were required, consistent with a larger overall effect of exposure on learning the spellings of pseudowords. Moreover, lexicality and reading-skill level were found to affect the learning rate across exposures based on a decrease in gaze durations, indicating a larger learning effect for pseudowords in Grade 5 children. Yet, further interactions between exposure and reading-skill level were not present, indicating largely similar learning curves for beginning and advanced readers. We concluded that the reading system of more advanced readers may cope somewhat better with words varying in lexicality, but is not more efficient than that of beginning readers in building up orthographic knowledge of specific words across repeated exposures. 
 Keywords: Eye tracking, lexicality, literacy development, orthographic learning, reading fluency.

• Kuperman, Victor; Bar-On, Amalia; Bertram, Raymond; Boshra, Rober; Deutsch, Avital & Kyröläinen, Aki-Juhani [Vis alle 9 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2021). Prevalence of spelling errors affects reading behavior across languages. Journal of experimental psychology. General. ISSN 0096-3445. doi: 10.1037/xge0001038. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This cross-linguistic study investigated the impact of spelling errors on reading behavior in five languages (Chinese, English, Finnish, Greek, and Hebrew). Learning theories predict that correct and incorrect spelling alternatives (e.g., “tomorrow” and “tommorrow”) provide competing cues to the sound and meaning of a word: The closer the alternatives are to each other in their frequency of occurrence, the more uncertain the reader is regarding the spelling of that word. An information-theoretic measure of entropy was used as an index of uncertainty. Based on theories of learning, we predicted that higher entropy would lead to slower recognition of words even when they are spelled correctly. This prediction was confirmed in eye-tracking sentence-reading experiments in five languages widely variable in their writing systems’ phonology and morphology. Moreover, in each language, we observed a characteristic Entropy × Frequency interaction; arguably, its functional shape varied as a function of the orthographic transparency of a given written language.

• Andrikopoulou, Angeliki; Protopapas, Athanassios & Arvaniti, Amalia (2021). Lexical Stress Representation in Spoken Word Recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. ISSN 0096-1523. 47(6), s. 830–851. doi: 10.1037/xhp0000929. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  According to a popular model of speech production, stress is underspecified in the lexicon, that is, it is specified only for words with stress patterns other than the default, termed the “default metrics” assumption. Alternatively, stress may be fully specified in the lexicon as part of every lexical representation. In the current study the two accounts are tested in the perceptual domain using behavioral and eye-tracking data in Greek. In a first experiment, cross-modal fragment priming was used in a lexical-decision task. According to default metrics, priming should occur for targets with antepenultimate- or final-syllable stress but not for targets with the default penultimate-syllable stress. The same word pairs were used in two subsequent visual world experiments. Default metrics predict an asymmetric pattern of results, namely that incoming spoken words with the default stress pattern should inhibit the activation of lexical representations with nondefault stress, whereas the converse should not be observed; that is, spoken words with nondefault stress should not inhibit representations of words with the default stress. None of the results provided support for the idea of default metrics, leading to alternative conceptualizations regarding the representation of stress.

• Loui, Sofia; Protopapas, Athanassios & Orfanidou, Eleni (2021). Asymmetric Morphological Priming Among Inflected and Derived Verbs and Nouns in Greek. Frontiers in Psychology. 12. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.658189. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The present study examined differences between inflectional and derivational morphology using Greek nouns and verbs with masked priming (with both short and long stimulus onset asynchrony) and long-lag priming. A lexical decision task to inflected noun and verb targets was used to test whether their processing is differentially facilitated by prior presentation of their stem in words of the same grammatical class (inflectional morphology) or of a different grammatical class (derivational morphology). Differences in semantics, syntactic information, and morphological complexity between inflected and derived word pairs (both nouns and verbs) were minimized by unusually tight control of stimuli as permitted by Greek morphology. Results showed that morphological relations affected processing of morphologically complex Greek words (nouns and verbs) across prime durations (50–250ms) as well as when items intervened between primes and targets. In two of the four experiments (Experiments 1 and 3), inflectionally related primes produced significantly greater effects than derivationally related primes suggesting differences in processing inflectional versus derivational morphological relations, which may disappear when processing is less dependent on semantic effects (Experiment 4). Priming effects differed for verb vs. noun targets with long SOA priming (Experiment 3), consistent with processing differences between complex words of different grammatical class (nouns and verbs) when semantic effects are maximized. Taken together, results demonstrate that inflectional and derivational relations differentially affect processing complex words of different grammatical class (nouns and verbs). This finding indicates that distinctions of morphological relation (inflectional vs. derivational) are not of the same kind as distinctions of grammatical class (nouns vs. verbs). Asymmetric differences among inflected and derived verbs and nouns seem to depend on semantic effects and/or processing demands modulating priming effects very early in lexical processing of morphologically complex written words, consistent with models of lexical processing positing early access to morphological structure and early influence of semantics.

• Morante, Manuel; Kopsinis, Yannis; Chatzichristos, Christos; Protopapas, Athanassios & Theodoridis, Sergios (2021). Enhanced design matrix for task-related fMRI data analysis. NeuroImage. ISSN 1053-8119. 245, s. 1–19. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118719. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In this paper, we introduce a novel methodology for the analysis of task-related fMRI data. In particular, we propose an alternative way for constructing the design matrix, based on the newly suggested Information-Assisted Dictionary Learning (IADL) method. This technique offers an enhanced potential, within the conventional GLM framework, (a) to efficiently cope with uncertainties in the modeling of the hemodynamic response function, (b) to accommodate unmodeled brain-induced sources, beyond the task-related ones, as well as potential interfering scanner-induced artifacts, uncorrected head-motion residuals and other unmodeled physiological signals, and (c) to integrate external knowledge regarding the natural sparsity of the brain activity that is associated with both the experimental design and brain atlases. The capabilities of the proposed methodology are evaluated via a realistic synthetic fMRI-like dataset, and demonstrated using a test case of a challenging fMRI study, which verifies that the proposed approach produces substantially more consistent results compared to the standard design matrix method. A toolbox extension for SPM is also provided, to facilitate the use and reproducibility of the proposed methodology.

• Morante, Manuel; Kopsinis, Yannis; Theodoridis, Sergios & Protopapas, Athanassios (2020). Information Assisted Dictionary Learning for fMRI data analysis. IEEE Access. doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2020.2994276. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In this paper, the task-related fMRI problem is treated in its matrix factorization form, focusing on the Dictionary Learning (DL) approach. The proposed method allows the incorporation of a priori knowledge that is associated with both the experimental design and available brain atlases. Moreover, it can cope efficiently with uncertainties in the modeling of the hemodynamic response function. In addition, the method bypasses one of the major drawbacks of the DL methods; namely, the selection of the sparsity-related regularization parameters. Under the proposed formulation, the associated regularization parameters bear a direct relation to the number of the activated voxels for each one of the sources' spatial maps. This natural interpretation facilitates fine-tuning of the related parameters and allows for exploiting external information from brain atlases. The proposed method is evaluated against several other popular techniques, including the classical General Linear Model (GLM). The obtained performance gains are quantitatively demonstrated via a novel realistic synthetic fMRI dataset as well as real data from a challenging experimental design.

• Protopapas, Athanassios & Parrila, Rauno (2019). Dyslexia: Still Not a Neurodevelopmental Disorder. Brain Sciences. 9(1). doi: 10.3390/brainsci9010009. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We recently pointed out that there is no evidence to support the commonly held view that there is something wrong with the brains of children who have great difficulty learning to read. In response, it was argued that dyslexia should be considered to be a neurodevelopmental disorder because of its potential to adversely affect quality of life, and because there are differences between the brains of people with different levels of reading skill. We agree with these two points, but they are irrelevant to the issue in question, because neither establishes the critical notion of disrupted neurodevelopment; that is, a brain fault. Differences between groups do not imply that any individuals are abnormal, and calling a brain improperly developed on the basis of cultural issues has absurd implications. Even calling brains atypical is unfounded because reference to typicality hinges on knowledge of the relevant distributions, which is currently lacking. Moreover, there is at present no obvious role for neurology- or neuroscience-based input for the critical issue of the assessment and remediation of the reading difficulties themselves. We reiterate our conclusion that there is, at the moment, no credible foundation to support the claim that dyslexia is a neurodevelopmental disorder.

• Protopapas, Athanasios (2019). Evolving Concepts of Dyslexia and Their Implications for Research and Remediation. Frontiers in Psychology. 10. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02873. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Aspects of dyslexia definitions are framed as a contrast between the past and the future, focusing on implications for research and remedial education, highlighting assumptions that bias or limit research or clinical practice. A crucial development is evident in understanding dyslexia, moving from its conceptualization as a discrete identifiable condition toward the realization of continuity with the general population with no clear boundaries and no qualitative differences. This conceptual evolution amounts to a transition from considering dyslexia to be some entity that causes poor reading toward considering the term dyslexia to simply label poor reading performance. This renders obsolete any searches for abnormalities and directs efforts toward understanding reading skill as a multifaceted domain following a complex multifactorial developmental course.

• Altani, Angeliki; Protopapas, Athanasios; Katopodi, Katerina & Georgiou, George (2019). Tracking the serial advantage in the naming rate of multiple over isolated stimulus displays. Reading and writing. ISSN 0922-4777. doi: 10.1007/s11145-019-09962-7. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  The serial advantage, defined as the gain in naming rate in the serial over the discrete task of the same content, was examined between grades and types of content in English and Greek. 720 English- and Greek-speaking children from Grades 1, 3, and 5 were tested in rapid naming and reading tasks of different content, including digits, objects, dice, number words, and words. Each type of content was presented in two presentation formats: multiple stimulus displays (i.e., serial naming) and isolated stimulus displays (i.e., discrete naming). Serial tasks yielded faster naming rates―irrespective of task content―in both languages. However, content-specific characteristics influenced the trajectory of the serial advantage between grades. Improvement in the serial advantage between grades was found to be greatest for word reading, which started off similar to object naming in Grade 1, but ended up similar to digit or dice naming by Grade 5. In addition, growth in serial advantage was found to be associated with growth in discrete naming rate only in grade level analysis. For individuals, greater serial advantage was found to rely on processing skills specific to serial naming rather than on differences in the rate of naming isolated items. Our findings suggest that group level findings may not generalize to individuals, and although practice and familiarity with the content on the naming/reading task may impact the development of serial advantage, isolated item identification processes contribute little to individual differences in the gain in serial naming rates.

• Altani, Angeliki; Protopapas, Athanassios; Katopodi, Katerina & Georgiou, George (2019). From Individual Word Recognition to Word List and Text Reading Fluency. Journal of Educational Psychology. ISSN 0022-0663. doi: 10.1037/edu0000359. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This study aimed to examine (a) the developing interrelations between the efficiency of reading individually presented words (i.e., isolated word recognition speed) and the efficiency of reading multiword sequences (i.e., word list and text reading fluency); (b) whether serial digit naming, indexing the ability to process multi-item sequences, accounts for variance in word list and text reading fluency beyond isolated word recognition speed; and (c) if these patterns of relations/effects differ between two alphabetic languages varying in orthographic consistency (English and Greek). In total, 710 Greek- and English-speaking children from Grades 1, 3, and 5 completed a serial digit naming task and a set of reading tasks, including unconnected words presented individually, unconnected words presented in lists, and sentences forming a meaningful passage. Our results showed that the relation between isolated word recognition speed and both word list and text reading fluency gradually decreased across grades, irrespective of contextual processing requirements. Moreover, serial digit naming uniquely predicted both word-list and text reading fluency in Grades 3 and 5, beyond isolated word recognition speed. The same pattern of results was observed across languages. These findings challenge the notion that individual word recognition and reading fluency differ only in text-level processing requirements. Instead, an additional component of processing multi-item sequences appears to emerge by Grade 3, after a basic level of both accuracy and speed in word recognition has been achieved, offering a potential mechanism underlying the transition from dealing with words one at a time to efficient processing of word sequences.

• Diamanti, Vassiliki; Goulandris, Nata; Stuart, Morag; Campbell, Ruth & Protopapas, Athanassios (2018). Tracking the effects of dyslexia in reading and spelling development: A longitudinal study of Greek readers. Dyslexia. ISSN 1076-9242. 24(2), s. 170–189. doi: 10.1002/dys.1578. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Protopapas, Athanassios; Katopodi, Katerina; Altani, Angeliki & Georgiou, George (2018). Word Reading Fluency as a Serial Naming Task. Scientific Studies of Reading. ISSN 1088-8438. 22(3), s. 248–263. doi: 10.1080/10888438.2018.1430804. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Word list reading fluency is theoretically expected to depend on single word reading speed. Yet the correlation between the two diminishes with increasing fluency, while fluency remains strongly correlated to serial digit naming. We hypothesized that multielement sequence processing is an important component of fluency. We used confirmatory factor analyses with serial and discrete naming tasks with matched items, including digits, dice, objects, number words, and words, performed by about one hundred Greek children in each of Grades 1, 3, and 5. Separable serial and discrete factors emerged across grades, consistent with distinct skill dimensions. Loadings were greater for serial than discrete, suggesting that discrete processing does not fully determine serial processing. Average serial performance differed more than discrete between grades, consistent with improvement beyond single-item speed. Serial word reading aligned increasingly with the serial factor at higher grades. Thus, word reading fluency is gradually dominated by skill in simultaneously processing multiple successive items through different stages (termed “cascading”), beyond automatization of individual words. The final version of this research has been published in Scientific Studies of Reading. © 2018 Taylor & Francis

• Altani, Angeliki; Protopapas, Athanassios & Georgiou, George (2018). Using Serial and Discrete Digit Naming to Unravel Word Reading Processes. Frontiers in Psychology. 9, s. 1–11. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00524. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  During reading acquisition, word recognition is assumed to undergo a developmental shift from slow serial/sublexical processing of letter strings to fast parallel processing of whole word forms. This shift has been proposed to be detected by examining the size of the relationship between serial- and discrete-trial versions of word reading and rapid naming tasks. Specifically, a strong association between serial naming of symbols and single word reading suggests that words are processed serially, whereas a strong association between discrete naming of symbols and single word reading suggests that words are processed in parallel as wholes. In this study, 429 Grade 1, 3, and 5 English-speaking Canadian children were tested on serial and discrete digit naming and word reading. Across grades, single word reading was more strongly associated with discrete naming than with serial naming of digits, indicating that short high-frequency words are processed as whole units early in the development of reading ability in English. In contrast, serial naming was not a unique predictor of single word reading across grades, suggesting that within-word sequential processing was not required for the successful recognition for this set of words. Factor mixture analysis revealed that our participants could be clustered into two classes, namely beginning and more advanced readers. Serial naming uniquely predicted single word reading only among the first class of readers, indicating that novice readers rely on a serial strategy to decode words. Yet, a considerable proportion of Grade 1 students were assigned to the second class, evidently being able to process short high-frequency words as unitized symbols. We consider these findings together with those from previous studies to challenge the hypothesis of a binary distinction between serial/sublexical and parallel/lexical processing in word reading. We argue instead that sequential processing in word reading operates on a continuum, depending on the level of reading proficiency, the degree of orthographic transparency, and word-specific characteristics.

• Diamanti, Vasiliki; Goulandris, Nata; Campbell, Ruth & Protopapas, Athanassios (2018). Dyslexia profiles across orthographies differing in transparency:An evaluation of theoretical predictions contrasting English and Greek. Scientific Studies of Reading. ISSN 1088-8438. 22(1), s. 55–69. doi: 10.1080/10888438.2017.1338291. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We examined the manifestation of dyslexia in a cross-linguistic study contrasting English and Greek children with dyslexia compared to chronological age and reading-level control groups on reading accuracy and fluency, phonological awareness, short-term memory, rapid naming, orthographic choice, and spelling. Materials were carefully matched across languages in item properties and structure. English children with dyslexia were more impaired on reading accuracy and phoneme deletion but not on reading fluency, memory, naming, or orthographic choice. No differences in impairment were observed between words and pseudowords across languages. Orthographic tests targeted specific morphemes to examine the accessibility of functionally distinct word parts across languages. There were no differences in prefix and stem orthographic choice, but English children were less successful in spelling inflectional suffixes despite greater morphological richness in Greek, highlighting the need for additional considerations beyond grain size in cross-linguistic work.

• Protopapas, Athanassios & Parrila, Rauno (2018). Is Dyslexia a Brain Disorder? Brain Sciences. 8(4). doi: 10.3390/brainsci8040061. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Specific word reading difficulty, commonly termed ‘developmental dyslexia’, refers to the low end of the word reading skill distribution but is frequently considered to be a neurodevelopmental disorder. This term implies that brain development is thought to be disrupted, resulting in an abnormal and dysfunctional brain. We take issue with this view, pointing out that there is no evidence of any obvious neurological abnormality in the vast majority of cases of word reading difficulty cases. The available relevant evidence from neuroimaging studies consists almost entirely of correlational and group-differences studies. However, differences in brains are certain to exist whenever differences in behavior exist, including differences in ability and performance. Therefore, findings of brain differences do not constitute evidence for abnormality; rather, they simply document the neural substrate of the behavioral differences. We suggest that dyslexia is best viewed as one of many expressions of ordinary ubiquitous individual differences in normal developmental outcomes. Thus, terms such as “dysfunctional” or “abnormal” are not justified when referring to the brains of persons with dyslexia.

• Kapnoula, Efthymia; Protopapas, Athanassios; Saunders, Steven & Coltheart, Max (2017). Lexical and sublexical effects on visual word recognition in Greek: comparing human behavior to the dual route cascaded model. Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. ISSN 2327-3798. 32(10), s. 1290–1304. doi: 10.1080/23273798.2017.1355059. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We evaluated the dual route cascaded (DRC) model of visual word recognition using Greek behavioural data on word and nonword naming and lexical decision, focusing on the effects of syllable and bigram frequency. DRC was modified to process polysyllabic Greek words and nonwords. The Greek DRC and native speakers of Greek were presented with the same sets of word and nonword stimuli, spanning a wide range on several psycholinguistic variables, and the sensitivity of the model to lexical and sublexical variables was compared to the effects of these factors on the behavioural data. DRC pronounced correctly all the stimuli and successfully simulated the effects of frequency in words, and of length and bigram frequency in nonwords. However, unlike native speakers of Greek, DRC failed to demonstrate sensitivity to word length and syllabic frequency. We discuss the significance of these findings in constraining models of visual word recognition. The final version of this research has been published in Language, Cognition and Neuroscience. © Taylor & Francis.

• Parrila, Rauno & Protopapas, Athanassios (2017). Dyslexia and word reading problems. I Cain, Kate; Compton, Donald & Parrila, Rauno (Red.), Theories of reading development. John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISSN 9789027218117. s. 333–358. doi: 10.1075/swll.15.19par. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  © John Benjamins. The publisher should be contacted for permission to re-use or reprint the material in any form.

• Diamanti, Vassiliki; Mouzaki, Angeliki; Ralli, Asimina; Antoniou, Faye; Papaioannou, Sophia & Protopapas, Athanassios (2017). Preschool phonological and morphological awareness as longitudinal predictors of early reading and spelling development in Greek. Frontiers in Psychology. 8. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02039. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Different language skills are considered fundamental for successful reading and spelling acquisition. Extensive evidence has highlighted the central role of phonological awareness in early literacy experiences. However, many orthographic systems also require the contribution of morphological awareness. The goal of this study was to examine the morphological and phonological awareness skills of preschool children as longitudinal predictors of reading and spelling ability by the end of first grade, controlling for the effects of receptive and expressive vocabulary skills. At Time 1 preschool children from kindergartens in the Greek regions of Attika, Crete, Macedonia, and Thessaly were assessed on tasks tapping receptive and expressive vocabulary, phonological awareness (syllable and phoneme), and morphological awareness (inflectional and derivational). Tasks were administered through an Android application for mobile devices (tablets) featuring automatic application of ceiling rules. At Time 2 one year later the same children attending first grade were assessed on measures of word and pseudoword reading, text reading fluency, text reading comprehension, and spelling. Complete data from 104 children are available. Hierarchical linear regression and commonality analyses were conducted for each outcome variable. Reading accuracy for both words and pseudowords was predicted not only by phonological awareness, as expected, but also by morphological awareness, suggesting that understanding the functional role of word parts supports the developing phonology–orthography mappings. However, only phonological awareness predicted text reading fluency at this age. Longitudinal prediction of reading comprehension by both receptive vocabulary and morphological awareness was already evident at this age, as expected. Finally, spelling was predicted by preschool phonological awareness, as expected, as well as by morphological awareness, the contribution of which is expected to increase due to the spelling demands of Greek inflectional and derivational suffixes introduced at later grades. This document is protected by copyright and was first published by Frontiers. All rights reserved. it is reproduced with permission.

• Diamanti, Vassiliki; Benaki, Argyro; Mouzaki, Angeliki; Ralli, Asimina; Antoniou, Faye & Papaioannou, Sophia [Vis alle 7 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2017). Development of early morphological awareness in Greek: Epilinguistic versus metalinguistic and inflectional versus derivational awareness. Applied Psycholinguistics. ISSN 0142-7164. 39(3), s. 545–567. doi: 10.1017/S0142716417000522. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  This cross-sectional study examined the development of morphological awareness in Greek children 4–7 years old. A distinction was adopted between epilinguistic control, evidenced in judgment tasks and indicative of elementary levels of awareness, and metalinguistic awareness, evidenced in production tasks and indicative of full-blown conscious awareness. The morphological domains of inflectional and derivational morphology were specifically contrasted to determine whether they follow distinct developmental trajectories. Trial-level performance data from 236 children in four morphological awareness tasks as a function of age were modeled using generalized additive models. Significant performance increase with age was found for all four awareness tasks. The results further indicated that production of derivational morphemes was consistently more difficult than production of inflectional morphemes and judgment of derivational morphemes, whereas the differences between the two inflectional and between the two judgment tasks were not significant. This suggests that at these ages, epilinguistic control is similarly effective for the two morphological domains whereas full metalinguistic awareness of derivational morphology trails behind that of inflectional morphology, at least as measured by these specific tasks. The findings highlight the need for early tracking and finer distinctions within the domain of morphological awareness, to identify and potentially enhance the critical skills related to the development of vocabulary and reading comprehension.

• Protopapas, Athanassios; Mitsi, Anna; Koustoumbardis, Miltiadis; Tsitsopoulou, Sofia; Leventi, Marianna & Seitz, Aaron (2017). Incidental orthographic learning during a color detection task. Cognition. ISSN 0010-0277. 166, s. 251–271. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2017.05.030. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Orthographic learning refers to the acquisition of knowledge about specific spelling patterns forming words and about general biases and constraints on letter sequences. It is thought to occur by strengthening simultaneously activated visual and phonological representations during reading. Here we demonstrate that a visual perceptual learning procedure that leaves no time for articulation can result in orthographic learning evidenced in improved reading and spelling performance. We employed task-irrelevant perceptual learning (TIPL), in which the stimuli to be learned are paired with an easy task target. Assorted line drawings and difficult-to-spell words were presented in red color among sequences of other black-colored words and images presented in rapid succession, constituting a fast-TIPL procedure with color detection being the explicit task. In five experiments, Greek children in Grades 4–5 showed increased recognition of words and images that had appeared in red, both during and after the training procedure, regardless of within-training testing, and also when targets appeared in blue instead of red. Significant transfer to reading and spelling emerged only after increased training intensity. In a sixth experiment, children in Grades 2–3 showed generalization to words not presented during training that carried the same derivational affixes as in the training set. We suggest that reinforcement signals related to detection of the target stimuli contribute to the strengthening of orthography-phonology connections beyond earlier levels of visually-based orthographic representation learning. These results highlight the potential of perceptual learning procedures for the reinforcement of higher-level orthographic representations.

• Protopapas, Athanasios; Markatou, Artemis; Samaras, Evangelos & Piokos, Andreas (2017). Shape and color naming are inherently asymmetrical: Evidence from practice-based interference. Cognition. ISSN 0010-0277. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2016.10.025. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Altani, Angeliki; Protopapas, Athanasios & Georgiou, George K (2017). The contribution of executive functions to naming digits, objects, and words. Reading and writing. ISSN 0922-4777. doi: 10.1007/s11145-016-9666-4. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Altani, Angeliki; Georgiou, George; Deng, Ciping; Cho, Jeung-Ryeul; Katopodi, Katerina & Wei, Wei [Vis alle 7 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2017). Is processing of symbols and words influenced by writing system? Evidence from Chinese, Korean, English, and Greek. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. ISSN 0022-0965. 164, s. 117–135. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2017.07.006. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  We examined cross-linguistic effects in the relationship between serial and discrete versions of digit naming and word reading. In total, 113 Mandarin-speaking Chinese children, 100 Korean children, 112 English-speaking Canadian children, and 108 Greek children in Grade 3 were administered tasks of serial and discrete naming of words and digits. Interrelations among tasks indicated that the link between rapid naming and reading is largely determined by the format of the tasks across orthographies. Multigroup path analyses with discrete and serial word reading as dependent variables revealed commonalities as well as significant differences between writing systems. The path coefficient from discrete digits to discrete words was greater for the more transparent orthographies, consistent with more efficient sight-word processing. The effect of discrete word reading on serial word reading was stronger in alphabetic languages, where there was also a suppressive effect of discrete digit naming. However, the effect of serial digit naming on serial word reading did not differ among the four language groups. This pattern of relationships challenges a universal account of reading fluency acquisition while upholding a universal role of rapid serial naming, further distinguishing between multi-element interword and intraword processing. Altani, Angeliki; Georgiou, George; Deng, Ciping; Cho, Jeung-Ryeul; Katopodi, Katerina; Wei, Wei; Protopapas, Athanassios "Is processing of symbols and words influenced by writing system? Evidence from Chinese, Korean, English, and Greek." Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. 2017, 164, 117-135 © 2017. This manuscript version is made available under the CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license

• Grimani, Aikaterini & Protopapas, Athanassios (2017). Derivational suffixes as cues to stress position in reading Greek. Journal of Research in Reading. ISSN 0141-0423. 40, s. S23–S41. doi: 10.1111/1467-9817.12092. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Background In languages with lexical stress, reading aloud must include stress assignment. Stress information sources across languages include word-final letter sequences. Here, we examine whether such sequences account for stress assignment in Greek and whether this is attributable to absolute rules involving accenting morphemes or to probabilistic lexical information. Methods Pseudowords were constructed to not resemble particular words and were suffixed with derivational morphemes associated with specific stress patterns, to be read aloud, presented either without a stress diacritic or with a diacritic congruent or incongruent with the suffix. Morphemes differed in whether or not there were stress competitors ending in the same letter sequences. Results Stress was assigned consistent with the suffix in the absence of the diacritic, more so when there were no stress competitors in the lexicon. Conclusions Results suggest a lexically based probabilistic mechanism taking into account pattern distributions rather than absolute rules based on the morphological accenting. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Derivational suffixes as cues to stress position in reading Greek, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-9817.12092. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.

• Protopapas, Athanasios; Altani, Angeliki & Georgiou, George (2013). Development of serial processing in reading and rapid naming. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. ISSN 0022-0965. 116(4), s. 914–929. doi: 10.1016/j.jecp.2013.08.004. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

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• Varlokosta, Spyridoula; Stamouli, Spyridoula; Karasimos, Athanasios; Markopoulos, Georgios; Kakavoulia, Maria & Nerantzini, Michaela [Vis alle 10 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2016). A Greek Corpus of Aphasic Discourse: Collection, Transcription, and Annotation Specifications. Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings. ISBN 9789176857304. 8 s. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

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• Ziaka, Laoura; Adedeji, Victoria; Altani, Angeliki; Papadaki, Stella; Simonsen, Kristin & Zelihic, Dzan [Vis alle 7 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2026). Eye-voice span in serial naming tasks: material load and the maturity of cognitive control. doi: 10.13140/RG.2.2.24776.28163. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Studies examining eye-voice span (EVS) in serial naming (SN) tasks with and without internal interference (incongruent and neutral conditions of the multi-item Stroop task) show dynamic changes in EVS as a function of time-on-task (item position), interpreted as a shift from more parallel to more serial processing due to nearby-items interference and cognitive overload. However, little is known about how the maturity of the control system may influence these dynamics. Here, we examine within-task changes in spatial and temporal EVSs in 197 2nd- and 5th-graders across SN tasks varying in load (digits, objects, and words) at three timepoints. Audio recordings were first processed automatically, then manually to correct the marked speech onsets and offsets and to annotate errors. Gaze data were processed using custom scripts to assign fixations to items. EVS measures were calculated on time-aligned audio and gaze data: Spatial EVSs capture item distance between gaze and voice at articulation onset and offset, while temporal EVSs capture time differences between fixation and articulation instants. We fit generalized additive mixed-effects models to examine whether EVSs change as a function of time-on-task, material load, and assessment timepoint (item position × task × time interaction) and if the changes differ between grades.

• Diamanti, Vassiliki; Altani, Angeliki; Simonsen, Kristin; Zelihic, Dzan & Protopapas, Athanassios (2026). Where do the effects of repeated reading come from? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Purpose. Repeated reading is a frequently chosen intervention method for increasing reading fluency, with documented effectiveness. Yet the mechanisms underlying its effects remain unknown. Does it work by primarily affecting recognition of the specific words repeatedly encountered, or by enhancing more general cognitive processing mechanisms underlying reading efficiency across words? Or both? Method. We administered a brief one-on-one intervention to Norwegian children attending Grades 2 (N=78) and 5 (N=92) in an AB/ΒΑ crossover design with three testing points around two 6-week intervention periods. In each of 24 sessions, children read aloud an age-appropriate passage four times, following modeling. Passages were story “chapters” of approx. 80 words each for G2 and 200 for G5. The primary outcome was oral reading fluency (ORF, correct words per minute) in near-transfer passages (containing selected words from the intervention). We also tested ORF in far-transfer passages (from a standardized test), word and pseudoword list reading efficiency, reading comprehension accuracy and efficiency, and serial and discrete naming and (unrelated) word reading. Results. Significant effects of the intervention were only obtained for ORF in near transfer passages (approximately 10% increased WPM). We also observed a significant decrease in reading latency for individual words encountered during the intervention. None of the other measures exhibited significant intervention effects. Conclusions. The earliest and largest effects of repeated reading intervention, across grades, appear to concern familiarization with the specific words that are repeatedly read. This finding has implications for the selection of intervention content aiming to maximize utility in educational and clinical settings.

• Protopapas, Athanassios; Ziaka, Laoura; Zelihic, Dzan; Simonsen, Kristin; Altani, Angeliki & McMurray, Bob (2026). Children’s visual word recognition is hampered by adjacent stimuli. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Purpose. Skilled readers preview upcoming words before fixating them. Developing readers are limited in using parafoveal information, leading to the expectation that they are insensitive to adjacent stimuli. However, lack of benefit from nearby items does not preclude a negative impact on recognition processes. Given recent findings of interference from adjacent words for adult readers, we investigated whether children’s word recognition is also affected. Method. We tested Norwegian children attending Grades 2 (N=62) and 5 (N=141) using a modified version of the visual world paradigm with masked flanked visual word targets. Four images were displayed at the screen quadrants. A target word was briefly flashed (G2: 450 ms; G5: 250 ms) centrally, either in isolation or flanked by strings of repeated symbols, unknown fonts, or other words, followed by a mask. Children had to click on the picture matching the target. The latency of the gaze shift to the target image indexes lexical activation. Results. Compared to the baseline condition with no flankers, flanking words or unfamiliar-font strings interfered with lexical activation of the foveated target word. Strings of repeated symbols had no effect. The results were similar for the two grades, except that the most advanced readers exhibited reduced frequency effects with word flankers. Conclusions. Adjacent stimuli are to some extent simultaneously processed along with the foveated word and strongly interfere with it, from the earliest stages of—and throughout—reading development. We propose that management of interference from adjacent words is a major factor modulating the development and expression of reading skill.

• Ziaka, Laoura; Altani, Angeliki; Zelihic, Dzan; Simonsen, Kristin & Protopapas, Athanassios (2025). Return Sweeps in Serial Naming Tasks: Load does matter. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In reading and serial naming (SN) tasks, line transition saccades termed return sweeps (RS) may undershoot, resulting in undersweep fixations (USF). SN tasks are robust predictors of reading, with seriality and cognitive load emerging as crucial shared factors. RS in SN can illuminate underlyingprocessing free from contextual factors present in reading. A current rule of thumb in eye-tracking analysis dictates exclusion of the first and last items in each line. Here we compare first fixation duration (FFD), first and second run gaze duration (GD), and dwell time (DT), for the first and second item, contrasting lines with and without USF in 197 2nd and 5th graders on three SN tasks varying in load: digits, objects, and words. We focus on task by USF interactions, interpretable as: for the first item, spillover and suppression, for FFD, or parafoveal processing, for GD/DT; for the second item, lexical processing, for FFD, or reactivation of previously suppressed information, for GD and DT. Preliminary analysis shows that (a) load modulates (pre)processing during USF and (b) the second item is no less problematic than the first. Follow-up analyses will examine line-final, accurate line-initial, intraline fixations and RS saccades.

• Protopapas, Athanassios; Ziaka, Laoura; Zelihic, Dzan & McMurray, Bob (2025). Interference From Adjacent Words: Is It Symmetric? Is It Lexical? Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  In text reading words appear in sentences, surrounded by other words. Single-word reading studies cannot reveal whether the presence of adjacent words affects visual word recognition. Studies using flanker tasks suggest that flankers are orthographically processed in parallel with the target. Previous experiments from our group have demonstrated that flankers interfere with recognition of the target word, increasingly as they afford additional processing (visual, orthographic, phonological, lexical). Here we examine whether this interference is spatially symmetric and whether lexical activation of the flankers is involved. We used the visual world paradigm with masked (75-ms) flanked printed word targets. 61 Norwegian adults selected the picture (among four displayed) that corresponded to the centrally presented target word. In the first experiment, targets were flanked by words on one or both sides, with strings of symbols replacing absent words. Preliminary analysis indicates that word flankers on both sides contribute to the total interference, but the contribution from the right side is stronger. In the second experiment one of the pictures corresponds to a flanker, to probe lexical competition; data collection is underway.

• Protopapas, Athanassios; Altani, Angeliki; Ziaka, Laoura; Diamanti, Vassiliki; Simonsen, Kristin & Zelihic, Dzan [Vis alle 8 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2024). How does repeated reading work? Intervention effects on eye movements and the eye-voice span. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Repeated reading is an intervention where in each session a passage is read aloud several times, leading to increased fluency on trained passages and eventually modest transfer to unrelated passages. The origin and nature of the improvement remain unknown. Here we investigate the effects of a 24-session intervention on reading efficiency. We tracked eye movements and recorded vocal responses by 91 Norwegian 5th graders as they read a near-transfer (NT) and a far-transfer (FT) passage for 1 minute each before and after intervention. Gaze and voice onset and offset per word were aligned to calculate latencies and eye-voice span. Preliminary analyses indicate significant effects of intervention on onset latency, articulation duration (greater for NT passages), and go-past time; but not on first or single fixation duration or spatial onset and offset eye-voice span. Effects on gaze may have been more pronounced for challenging words encountered during intervention (present in NT passages). In sum, results suggest that the immediate effect of a brief repeated reading intervention is mediated by experience with reading specific words, primarily affecting late processing stages; the role of sentence context remains unclear.

• Ziaka, Laoura; Zelihic, Dzan; McMurray, Bob; Baxelbaum, Keith; Simonsen, Kristin & Protopapas, Athanassios (2024). The Foveal Load Hypothesis, And The Notion Of Exploration Vs. Exploitation In Word Reading: A Pupillometry Study. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ziaka, Laoura & Protopapas, Athanassios (2024). Return Sweeps in Serial Naming Tasks: What does matter. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Protopapas, Athanassios; Zelihic, Dzan; Ziaka, Laoura; Simonsen, Kristin; Apfelbaum, Keith & McMurray, Bob (2023). Word reading efficiency is associated with resistance to interference from adjacent words. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Kyriakidou, Stefania Antonia; Ziaka, Laoura; McMurray, Bob; Zelihic, Dzan; Simonsen, Kristin & Protopapas, Athanassios (2023). The Effects of Interword Spacing on Visual Word Recognition: An Eye-tracking Study Using a Flanked-word Visual World Paradigm. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Protopapas, Athanassios (2023). Understanding fluency: Beyond the automaticity of single word reading. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv Vis sammendrag

  Fluent reading is the hallmark of the skilled reader and a foundation for efficient comprehension. Yet we understand surprisingly little about the nature and development of reading fluency. Current theoretical models seem to assume that fluent reading is a corollary of automatized individual word recognition; however, the efficiency of word list reading is more closely associated with serial digit naming (RAN; a nonreading task) than with the speed of reading individual words. In this talk I will present a framework for conceptualizing reading of word sequences as a serial naming task by focusing on parallel processing due to temporally overlapping processing of successive items. This approach helps us understand differences between naming tasks, their relationship to reading fluency, and -- most importantly -- what are the additional prerequisites to reading fluency, beyond automaticity, which end up dominating the development of word-level reading skill past the beginner stages. The enriched view of fluency enabled by this approach can shed light on why fluency interventions are less efficient than interventions targeting earlier stages of reading development, as well as on why certain types of interventions have emerged as consistently more effective.

• Simonsen, Kristin; Altani, Angeliki; Zelihic, Dzan; Ziaka, Laoura; Braze, David & Protopapas, Athanassios (2023). Development of Two Tests of Reading Comprehension Efficiency. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Protopapas, Athanassios; Katopodi, Katerina; Altani, Angeliki; Ziaka, Laoura & Georgiou, George K (2022). Articulation rate and cognitive demands in serial naming and reading. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Ziaka, Laoura; Katsamanis, Athanasios & Protopapas, Athanassios (2022). Eye-Voice Span in Single Item and Multi Item Stroop Tasks: Tracking Within Task Alterations. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Altani, Angeliki; Katsamanis, Athanasios; Kouzelis, Theodoros; Voukelatou, Danai; Zelihic, Dzan & Simonsen, Kristin [Vis alle 8 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2022). Temporal Eye-Voice Span in Naming Tasks as an Index of Cascading Efficiency. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Simonsen, Kristin; Altani, Angeliki; Zelihic, Dzan; Ziaka, Laoura; Braze, David & Protopapas, Athanassios (2022). Development of two tests of reading comprehension efficiency. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Zelihic, Dzan; Ziaka, Laoura; McMurray, Bob; Apfelbaum, Keith; Simonsen, Kristin & Protopapas, Athanassios (2022). Interference from adjacent items in automatic word recognition: Effects of lexicality and visual complexity. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Protopapas, Athanassios & Simonsen, Kristin (2021). Skolecasten 1.10. Better reading. [Internet]. https://anchor.fm/skolecasten/episodes/1-10--Better-reading-. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv
• Varlokosta, Spyridoula; Stamouli, Spyridoula; Karasimos, Athanasios; Markopoulos, Georgios; Kakavoulia, Maria & Nerantzini, Michaela [Vis alle 10 forfattere av denne artikkelen] (2016). A Greek corpus of aphasic discourse: Collection, transcription, and annotation specifications. Fulltekst i vitenarkiv

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