The Influence of Literacy on Speech. The Orthographic Consistency Effect in Auditory Language Perception and Language Production

Abstract

The present thesis presents a series of experiments that explore of the Orthographic Consistency Effect (OCE) in auditory language perception and production. The OCE is a psycholinguistic effect that shows a facilitation in processing words with sounds that can be spelled in only one way (e.g., /t/ in French or Spanish) in comparison to words with sounds that can be spelled in multiple ways (e.g., /k/ in French or Spanish). The OCE can be considered as a by-product of literacy since it is displayed by people who know how to read and write. In Experiment 1, the OCE in auditory language perception in L1-French and L1-Spanish adults was investigated by means of an auditory lexical decision task (LDT). Experiment 2 investigated the OCE in Spanish seven-year-olds, who are at an early stage of reading acquisition, in auditory language perception using the same paradigm as in Experiment 1. Experiment 3 investigated the time course and the brain correlates of the OCE in auditory language perception. L1-Spanish adults were tested in an auditory LDT and a passive listening task. Experiment 4 explored the OCE in language production of French and Spanish adults by means of reading aloud and picture naming tasks. Experiment 5 replicated Experiment 4 but with Spanish seven-year-olds. Overall, this work showed that literacy can strategically influence language perception and production.