The effect of lexicality and stimulus length was studied in 32 third- and fourth-grade Italian dyslexics and in 86 age-matched controls A visual lexical decision task was used As proposed by Faust et al. (1999), the results were analyzed in terms of raw reaction time (RT) data and using the z-score transformation to control for the presence of overadditivity effects. In terms of RTs, dyslexics showed a larger difference between words and nonwords (lexicality effect) and between short and long stimuli (length effect) than proficient readers. When data were transformed into z scores, only the group by length interaction remained significant while that with lexicality vanished. This pattern indicates that stimulus length has a specific role in Italian dyslexics' reading deficit; in contrast, slowness in responding to nonwords was not specific but was interpreted as one aspect of dyslexics' general inability to deal with alphabetical material (overadditivity effect).
Lexicality and stimulus length effects in Italian dyslexics: Role of the overadditivity effect / DI FILIPPO, Gloria; Maria De, Luca; Anna, Judica; Donatella, Spinelli; Zoccolotti, Pierluigi. - In: NEUROPSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENT, AND COGNITION. - ISSN 0929-7049. - STAMPA. - 12:2(2006), pp. 141-149. [10.1080/09297040500346571]
Lexicality and stimulus length effects in Italian dyslexics: Role of the overadditivity effect
DI FILIPPO, Gloria;ZOCCOLOTTI, Pierluigi
2006
Abstract
The effect of lexicality and stimulus length was studied in 32 third- and fourth-grade Italian dyslexics and in 86 age-matched controls A visual lexical decision task was used As proposed by Faust et al. (1999), the results were analyzed in terms of raw reaction time (RT) data and using the z-score transformation to control for the presence of overadditivity effects. In terms of RTs, dyslexics showed a larger difference between words and nonwords (lexicality effect) and between short and long stimuli (length effect) than proficient readers. When data were transformed into z scores, only the group by length interaction remained significant while that with lexicality vanished. This pattern indicates that stimulus length has a specific role in Italian dyslexics' reading deficit; in contrast, slowness in responding to nonwords was not specific but was interpreted as one aspect of dyslexics' general inability to deal with alphabetical material (overadditivity effect).I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.