Literacy is widespread, but little is known about its effect on cognitive processes. Research suggests that learning to read is beneficial because it fosters awareness of the structure of language, and orthographic images of words and letters may provide memory anchors for speech. The general hypothesis of this thesis is that orthographic images aid oral language activities. Adults who are illiterate perform poorly on initial phoneme manipulation tasks, suggesting that learning to read fosters phonemic knowledge. However, literate adults may use orthographic images to aid phoneme manipulation, so this conclusion may be false. In the 11 experiments reported in this thesis, literate English speakers performed phoneme deletion/addition tasks with word and non word items - half had orthographically matched stimuli and responses (wage-age), and half were mismatched (worth-earth). Longer reaction times were expected for orthographically mismatched than matched items. The results of experiments are discussed in some detail. Future experiments are suggested to validate the models, and to investigate further the role of orthographic images in oral language activities. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/234170 |
| Date | January 2002 |
| Creators | Tyler, Michael D., University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, Education and Social Sciences |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Source | THESIS_CAESS_XXX_Tyler_M.xml |
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