The Effect of Orthographic Systems on the Developing Reading System: Typological and Computational Analyses

Orthographic systems vary dramatically in the extent to which they encode a language's phonological and lexico-semantic structure. Studies of the effects of orthographic transparency suggest that such variation is likely to have major implications for how the reading system operates. However, such studies have been unable to examine in isolation the contributory effect of transparency on reading because of covarying linguistic or sociocultural factors. We first investigated the phonological properties of languages using the range of the world's orthographic systems (alphabetic, alphasyllabic, consonantal, syllabic, and logographic), and found that, once geographical proximity is taken into account, phonological properties do not relate to orthographic system. We then explored the processing implications of orthographic variation by training a connectionist implementation of the triangle model of reading on the range of orthographic systems while controlling for phonological and semantic structure. We show that the triangle model is effective as a universal model of reading, able to replicate key behavioral and neuroscientific results. The model also generates new predictions deriving from an explicit description of the effects of orthographic transparency on how reading is realized and defines the consequences of orthographic systems on reading processes.

Automated summary

Different orthographic systems encode a language's phonological and lexico-semantic structure to varying degrees. Despite this variation, geographical proximity does not appear to relate to phonological properties in different orthographies. Training a neural network on various orthographic systems reveals that the triangle model is an effective universal model of reading, able to replicate key behavioral and neuroscientific results. This model provides new predictions based on the effects of orthographic transparency on reading processes.