Special Issue Mapping sound to meaning under challenging conditions: Research Very early and late form-to-meaning computations during visual word recognition as revealed by electrophysiology

We used a large-scale data-driven approach to investigate the role of word form in accessing semantics. By using distributional semantic methods and taking advantage of an ERP lexical decision mega-study, we investigated the exact time dynamic of semantic ac-cess from printed words as driven by orthography-semantics consistency (OSC) and phonology-semantics consistency (PSC). Generalized Additive Models revealed very early and late OSC-by-PSC interactions, visible at 100 and 400 msec, respectively. This pattern suggests that, during visual word recognition: a) meaning is accessed by means of two distinct and interactive paths -the orthography-to-meaning and the orthography-to -phonology-to-meaning path-, which mutually contribute to recognition since early stages; b) the system may exploit a dual mechanism for semantic access, with early and late effects associated to a fast-coarse and a slow-fine grained semantic analysis, respec-tively. The results also highlight the high sensitivity of the visual word recognition system to arbitrary form-meaning relations.(c) 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

This study used a large-scale data-driven approach to investigate the role of word form in accessing semantics. The results show that meaning is accessed through two distinct paths during visual word recognition, which mutually contribute to the recognition process. The system may exploit a dual mechanism for semantic access.