Consistency in phonological-orthographic binding : electrophysiological correlates of feedforward and feedback consistency

Abstract

The mechanism underlying lexical retrieval during reading has been focused in word recognition research. The recurrent theory proposed by Stone, Vanhoy and Orden (1997) suggests bidirectional activation of orthography and phonology during reading. It challenged the traditional unidirectional orthography-to-phonology activation perspectives (Glushko, 1979). To verify this theory, the effects of feedforward (print-to-sound) consistency and feedback (sound-to-print) consistency on reading were investigated in the present event-related potential (ERP) study using a homophone judgment task with native Chinese readers. Results showed that feedforward consistent characters elicited greater negativity at the N170 component and greater positivity at the P200 component when compared with feedforward inconsistent characters. In contrast, feedback consistent characters elicited a reduced N170 and P200 component, coupled with an enhanced negativity at the N400 component when compared with feedback inconsistent characters. Critically, the results captured neurophysiological differences between feedforward and feedback consistency effects, suggesting bi-directional flow of activation during word recognition which lent support to the recurrent theory and modifications to Chinese word recognition models. Additionally, these findings could have implications on word recognition models.