InfoSyll: A Syllabary Providing Statistical Information on Phonological and Orthographic Syllables

here is now a growing body of evidence in various languages supporting the claim that syllables are functional units of visual word processing. In the perspective of modeling the processing of polysyllabic words and the activation of syllables, current studies investigate syllabic effects with subtle manipulations. We present here a syllabary of the French language aiming at answering new constraints when designing experiments on the syllable issue. The InfoSyll syllabary provides exhaustive characteristics and statistical information for each phonological syllable (e.g. /fi/) and for its corresponding orthographic syllables (e.g. fi, phi, phy, fee, fix, fis). Variables such as the type and token positional frequencies, the number and frequencies of the correspondences between orthographic and phonological syllables are provided. As discussed, such computations should allow precise controls, manipulations and quantitative descriptions of syllabic variables in the field of psycholinguistic research.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

The production of symbolic and non-symbolic numerals

AbstractSymbolic and non-symbolic numerals activate semantic information in number comprehension. This study explored whether semantic processing of numerals in production is also produced irrespective of number format. We indexed semantic access with the interference effect observed in the blocking paradigm (Kroll & Stewart, 1994). Symbolic and non-symbolic numerals were named in a mixed context (numerals and other semantic categories were intermixed) and a blocked context (numerals were grouped by category). Semantic interference was found for non-symbolic numerals but not for symbolic numerals. We concluded that number production does not imply semantic mediation necessarily and that number format makes the difference

Second language acquisition influences the processing of number words

We evaluated whether learning a second language (L2) influences the processing of numerical information. A group of German/English bilinguals with high/low L2 fluency performed two-digit number comparison tasks while the unit-decade compatibility was evaluated. All participants presented compatibility effect with Arabic digits regardless of their L2 learning stage. However, low fluency bilinguals performed verbal number comparison as monolinguals (regular compatibility effect in German, reverse compatibility effect in English) while fluent bilinguals with intensive experience in L2 learning did not show compatibility effects in either German or English. These results suggest that L2 learning determines the processing of two-digit number words

Is there cross-language modulation when bilinguals process number words?

This study explores the possibility of cross-language activation when bilinguals process number words in their first language (Italian) and their second language (German). Italian monolinguals (Experiment 1), German monolinguals (Experiment 2), and Italian/German bilinguals (Experiment 3) were required to decide the larger of two number words while the unit–decade compatibility effect was examined. For compatible trials the decade and unit comparisons lead to the same response (e.g., 24–67), whereas for incompatible trials the decade and unit comparisons lead to different responses (e.g., 27–64). The regular unit–decade compatibility effect was significant when bilinguals and monolinguals performed the comparison in German. However, this effect was not found when bilinguals and monolinguals performed the task in Italian. In addition, the decade distance played a major role when bilinguals processed in their first language, whereas the unit distance was more important when they worked in their second language. These results indicate that the processing of number words in one language is not modulated by the way bilinguals process number words in their alternative language