Rapid processing of multi-element arrays : is visual-attentional deficit present in Chinese developmental dyslexia?

Abstract

The current study consisted of two experiments involving adult and child Chinese readers respectively. The aim of the study was to investigate the serial position effects of normal readers in processing multi-element array and to see if visual attentional deficit theory could explain developmental dyslexia. Participants were tested on their ability in processing multi-element array using a two-alternative forced-choice task. Letters, digits, symbols, Chinese characters and logographeme were used as stimuli. Skilled Chinese readers gave an inverted V-shaped serial position function for all stimuli. It was contradict with what previously found in alphabetic readers and reflected a difference in visual processing mechanism for different language users. Also, performance of lexical/verbal materials were significantly better than that of non-lexical/non-verbal materials for all participants. This suggested that the sound/meaning of the stimuli would help in visual processing but the visual processing mechanism is more sensitive to the reading background of participants.