Journal of Educational Psycholog, 1075, Vol. 67, No. 3, 409-415
Word Recognition Cues Used in Matching Verbal Stimuli Within and Between Auditory and Visual Modalities Ingrid Swenson A rizona State University A matching-to-sample task was administered to 60 first graders under four conditions, two intramodal and two intermodal. The five matching cues (letters and segments) wore vised differentially within the four conditions with the initial segment selected most frequently in all conditions. The five cues were also used differentially across the four task conditions. Cue choice was related to reading achievement in the visual-to-visual matching condition with the good readers using the final word segment cue significantly more often than the initial and final consonant cue. The reading achievement of those selecting the reversal, initial word segment, or final word segment did not differ.
Recently, an apparently fruitful approach tween the auditory and visual senses for investigating the cues used by beginning (Muehl & Kremenak, 1966). At present, it readers when recognizing visual stimuli has is not known if the cues used to recognize been taken by Marchbanks and Levin (1965) stimuli differ in intramodal and intermodal and Williams, Blumbcrg, and Williams tasks. However, research has shown that (1970). The results of these studies indicated intermodal matching of nonverbal stimuli that letter cues were used more than word is related to reading achievement (Birch & shape and that the initial letter was the most Bclmont, 1964, 1965; Vandc Voort, Scnf, & salient cue. Benton, 1972). To date, only one study has investigated The purpose of the present study was to the cues used in auditory word recognition. extend the investigation of cues beginning Kuenne and Williams (1973) found that readers use in recognizing verbal stimuli. beginning readers most frequently used the Five cues (initial consonant, final consonant, final VC (vowel-consonant) segment to initial consonant and vowel, final vowel and auditorily identify a previously hoard stimu- consonant, and trigram reversal) were prelus. These results are consistent with sented to the same subjects for matching Knafle's (1973) results on visual cues, but a verbal stimuli between, as well as within, the comparison cannot be made because identi- visual and auditory modalities. Four decal cues were not available in both studies. laycd-recognition tasks investigated which of The reading acquisition process obviously the five cues beginning readers used to match requires that visually presented symbols be a visual stimulus to a visual stimulus (V-V), associated with familiar auditory sounds, but an auditory stimulus to a visual stimulus an analysis of reading instruction shows that (V-A), a visual stimulus to an auditory four different kinds of auditory and visual stimulus (A-V), and an auditory stimulus sensory integrations are necessary, two in- to an auditory stimulus (A-A). tramodal and two intermodal. That is, METHOD material must be integrated within and beThis article is based on the author's doctoral dissertation submitted to the Graduate College at Arizona State University. The author acknowledges the assistance of her chairman, Maurine A. Fry. Requests for reprints should be sent to Ingrid Swenson who is now at Tempo Union High School District, 1730 South Mill Avenue, Tempe, Arizona 85282.
Subjects Sixty middle-class children (30 males, 30 females) were selected randomly from the firstgrade classrooms of the participating school district. Chronological age ranged from 0-5 to 7-11 with a mean of 0-0. Kach subject was screened by the school nurse, and no visual or hearing loss was detected. Prior to the experiment, all subjects had 409
410
INGRID SWENSON
completod approximately 5 months of reading instruction using a basic text and various supplemental material. Nearly 2 months after this experiment was completed, the Metropolitan Achievement Test, Primary I Battery, was administered to 50 subjects. One subject had moved from the district. The median reading level of the remaining 59 subjects was approximately 2.0. Experimental Task Four delayed matching-to-sample tasks were used in this experiment, two intramodal and two intermodal. The two intramodal tasks were matching a visual stimulus with a previously seen visual stimulus (V-V) and matching an auditory stimulus with a previously heard auditory stimulus (A-A). The two intermodal tasks were matching an auditory stimulus with a previously seen visual stimulus (V-A) and matching a visual stimulus with a previously heard auditory stimulus (A-V). Auditory stimuli were prerecorded by the author on cassette tapes. Although the fidelity of these tapes did not correspond exactly to the spoken voice, the tapes were intelligible. The visual stimuli were printed in primary type 1M in. (3.81 cm) from the bottom of various sized index cards. For the V-A condition, the stimuli were printed on 3 X 5 in. cards. For the A-V condition, the visually presented trigrams were printed 2% in. (6.99 cm) apart on 5 X 8 in. cards. For the V-V condition, the stimulus was printed on a 3 X 5 in. card segment and the three response trigrams were printed 2% in. (0.99 cm) apart on a 5 X 8 in. card segment so the total card size was 5 X 1 1 in. Each set of visual material was fastened into a booklet by a plastic spiral binding across the top. The initial stimulus was a three-letter pronounceable nonsense trigram (CVC). Response alternatives were three CVCs, also pronounceable nonsense trigrams. A total of 14 stimuli and five types of stimulus transformations were constructed. The five transformations produced pronounceable CVCs with the same initial C, the same initial CV, the same final C, the same final VC, or a reversal (R) of the entire stimulus trigram. Ten of the 14 stimulus items in each list were included to obtain data for analysis. Over the 10 trials, each of the five transformations or cue types appeared as a response alternative six times, two times in each of the three response positions with the position order randomized, and an equal number of times with all other response alternative types. The response alternative selected as best matching the stimulus denoted the type of cue used to match the response to the stimulus item. An llth item containing a response alternative identical to the stimulus was included in each list as a check on procedural understanding. Four different random orders of the 11 stimulus items were developed. The throe remaining items were used as practice trials and were randomly ordered for each of the four lists. One of the three practice items also contained a response alternative iden-
tical to the stimulus item. Any subject who missed both identity items (practice item and list item) during the first task presentation was not included in the study. To limit the sound variations of possible CVCs, the experimenter followed Kuenne and Williams' (1973) procedure and constructed the stimulus items from 11 consonants rather than the full range of 21.' Six of the consonants were voiced: b, d, g, m, n, and v; and five were unvoiced: f, k, p, s, and t. The CVCs were constructed using either voiced or unvoiced consonants and the short sounds of the vowels a, o, and u. Kaeh consonant appeared once as the initial consonant and once as the final consonant in the stimulus trigrams. For example, if the stimulus item was "tup," the initial consonant cue trigram was las, the initial consonant arid vowel cue trigram was tuf, and the final consonant cue trigram was .sop. For the stimulus item "gam," the final consonant duo trigram was num., the final vowel and consonant cue trigram was bam, and the reversal trigram was mag. The three practice CVCs were formed with the same vowels, but the consonants j, 1, and z were used. Procedure The four matching tasks, V-V, V A, A -V, and A-A were presented individually with the presentation order counterbalanced for all subjects. The four CVC list orders were also counterbalanced across tasks for all subjects. Four green, 1-in. wooden cubes were placed in front of the subject, and he was given the following instructions whicli were essentially like those used by Kuenne and Williams (1973): We are going to play some word games. Here is how we will do it. There are four blocks in front of you. 1 am going to give each of the blocks a name. Sometimes you will see the name on a card just behind the block and sometimes you will hear the name from the tape recorder. When f give the first block a name, I want you to put your left hand on the first block. When I give the second block a name, you are to put your right hand on the second block. Then when I give the third block a name, you are to move your right hand to the third block. And finally, when I give the fourth block a name, I want you to move your right hand again, this time to the fourth block. After you have heard and/or seen all of the names, I want you to tell me which one of the three blocks that you put your right hand on has the same name or the name most like the block that you put your left hand on. When you have decided which of the last three blocks has the name most 1
The author acknowledges with appreciation the receipt of Kuenne and Williams' (1973) list of stimulus items.
411
WORD RECOGNITION CUES like the first block, pick it up and show it to me.
lowed because it did not correspond as closely to the reading situation.
Before each task was presented, three practice items were administered to assure that the subject understood the task. During the practice trials, subject's hands were guided to assure acquisition of the desired hand movements. When the subject indicated his response choice, the experimenter marked this choice on a response sheet. For the visual condition, the stimulus was presented for 3 sec and then removed from sight. The visual response card with the three alternatives was presented, and the subject made his response during the 10-sec presentation interval. Thus, the total trial time was 13 sec, 3 sec for stimulus presentation and 10 sec for the response presentation and responding. In the auditory conditions, the stimulus CVC was prcsenled, and the remainder of the 3-sec stimulus interval elapsed before the three responses were presented. The auditory response alternatives were spoken consecutively in normal speech, and the remainder of the 10-sec interval was allowed for responding. The two intermodal conditions used the same stimulus and response presentation procedure with 3 sec for stimulus presentation and 10 sec for response presentation and responding. The presentation mode for visual and auditory response items differed since the visual responses were presented simultaneously and the auditory response items were presented successively. Although both response types could have been presented successively, this procedure was not fol-
RESULTS The number of times subjects matched the 10 stimulus items on the basis of each of the five cues in the four different conditions is shown in Table 1. One subject was dropped from the study because she answered both identity items incorrectly during the initial task. Another subject was selected randomly to replace her. Responses to 11 of the 2,400 trials were omitted; that is, subjects did not make a choice. Boys omitted one response in the V-V, V-A, and A-A conditions and three responses in the A—V condition. Girls omitted one response in the V-A and A-A conditions and three responses in the A-V condition. The CV cue was the most frequently chosen cue by girls in all conditions and by boys in the V-V and A-V conditions. In the A-A condition, boys selected the VC cue most frequently, and in the V-A condition boys chose the R cue most frequently. Looking at the data for boys and girls combined, the two most frequently selected cues in the V-V and V-A conditions arc the CV and R cues. In the A-V condition, the 1C and CV
TABLE 1 FHKQUJONCY or Cuio USAGE WITHIN EACH MATCHING CONDITION Cue
Total
Visual-visual Boys Girls Total Visual- auditory Boys Girls Total Auditory-visual Boys Girls Total Auditory-auditory Boys Girls Total
1C
FC
CV
vc
R
47
20 23 43
97 103 200
53 47 100
82 08 150
299
1
300 599
0 1
38 30 74
79 87 106
50 40 90
80 72 152
299 299 598
1 1 2
71
21
90
49
66
297
3
71 142
38 59
88
53 102
47 113
297 594
3 6
52 57 109
44
75
57 54 111
299 299 598
1 1 2
59 106 52 04 115
31 75
178
71 86 157
71 146
Note. 1C = initial consonant; FC = final consonant; CV = initial consonant and vowel; VC = final vowel and consonant; II = trigram reversal.
412
INGRI1) SWKNSON
cues were most frequently selected, and in the A-A condition the CV and VC cues were most frequently chosen. In all four conditions, the FC cue was chosen least often. To determine whether boys and girls differ in cue use within each recognition task, four ehi-squarcs were computed on the cue choice frequencies in each of the four conditions. None of the four chi-squares was significant, indicating that within each of the recognition tasks, boys and girls did not differ in cue use, %2 (4) = 3.22-8.28, p > .05. Four Friedman analyses of variance using the rank order of cues used by each subject were computed to determine if cue use was independent of cue type within each of the four tasks. The obtained Friedman values indicated that the cues chosen within each of the four conditions differed significantly, X2 (4) = 20.62-60.40, p < .01. Specific comparisons for the total group within each condition were1 computed using Nemenyi's a posteriori test corrected for large samples (Miller, 1966). The results of these computations are summarized in Table 2. In all four conditions, (V-V, V-A, A-V, and A-A), the CV cue was selected significantly more frequently than the FC cue;. In the V-V condition, the TC, CV, VC, and R TABLK 2 SUMMAUY OF N J O M K N Y J TKST HKSCI/I-S C O M P A R I N G GUI-: UHAOIO WITHIN MATCHING CONDITION Condition Cues compared
1C vs. VC 1C vs. CV 1C vs. VC 1C vs. It FC vs. CV VC vs. VC FC vs. It CV vs. VC CV vs. It VC vs. It
V-V
V-A
A-V
A-A
.91*
.82
1.17*
.78 .53 .53 1.00* .28 1.34* 1.32* .20
1.39* .43 .58 .33
.44 .82 .72
.05 .72 2.08* .90* 1.03* 1.12* .45 .07
1.05*
1.81* .80
.11 1.27 1.10
1.05* 1.01* .70
.55 .11
.25
.01
.72
Note. TC = initial consonant; FC - final conHoniinl,; CV = initial consonant and vowel; VC = final vowel and consonant; It = trigram reversal; V-V =• visual-visual; V-A = visual-auditory; A-V — auditory-visual; A A = auditory-auditory. * p < .01.
cues were selected significantly more often than the FC cue, and the CV cue was selected more than the fC and VC cues. In the; V-A condition, the CV and R cues were selected significantly more frequently than the FC and VC cues, fn the A-V condition, the 1C, CV, and R cues were selected significantly more than the FC cues, and the CV cue was chosen significantly more than the; VC cue. In the A-A condition, the CV and VC cues were selected significantly more than the FC cue. The initial consonant cue always was used more frequently than the final consonant cue, but the difference was significant only in the V-V and A-V conditions. In all conditions, the initial segment cue, CV, was selected more frequently than the final segment cue, VC, but this difference was not significant in the A-A condition. A comparison of cue size indicates that larger cues (CV and VC) supplying more information were selected more frequently than the smaller cues (]C and FC) 14 of 16 times. However, the; difference was significant in only 7 of the 14 comparisons. The CV segment was used significantly more than the FC cue in all conditions and more than the 1C cue in the V-V condition. The VC segment was used significantly more than the FC cue in the V-A and A-A conditions. Five separate analyses of variance were computed to determine if the use of a particular cue differed across the four task conditions (V-V, V-A, A-V, and A-A). In all five comparisons, there was a significant main effect for task but not for sex. However, the interaction of Sex X Task Condition was significant for the FC cue (p < .05). The; interaction resulted from greater use of the FC cue by girls than by boys in the, A-V condition, but greater use by boys than girls in the A-A condition. Since there was no main effect for sex, the two groups were combined, and the analyses of variance were recomputed. These results are summarized in Table 3. SchefftS's a posteriori test was computed on the F ratios for the combined group to locate the significant simple effects for each cue. The 1C cue was used significantly more in the A-V condition than in the remaining
WORD RECOGNITION CUES
three conditions (A-V versus V-V, V-A, and A-A; Schcffe' value = .53, p < .05). The FC cue was used significantly more in the V-A and A-V than in the V-V condition (V-A and A-V versus V-V; Scheffe' value = .52, p < .01). The CV cue was used significantly more in the V-V than in the other three conditions (V-V versus V-A, A-V, and A-A; Scheff6 value = .55, p < .05). The VC cue was used significantly more frequently in the A-A condition than in the three remaining conditions (A-A versus V-V, V-A, and A-V; Schefte value = .81, p < .01). The use of the R cue was significantly greater in the V-V and V-A than in the A-V and A-A conditions (V-V and V-A versus A-V and A-A; Scheffe1 value = .65, p < .01). Metropolitan Achievement Test, Primary I Battery, scores were analyzed to determine if cue use was associated with reading performance. The achievement test scores indicate that this was an unusual group of first graders since boys performed as well as girls. The total standard score (word knowledge, word analysis, and reading) means and standard deviations for boys and girls were 51.65, 49.93, 13.14, and 9.45, respectively. To determine if the preferred cue in each of the four conditions was related to reading achievement, each subject's total standard score was placed into one of five groups, according to the cue he selected most frequently. When two cues were tied for most frequent use, the score was randomly assigned to one of the cues. If more than two cues were tied for most frequent use, the subject was not included in the analysis. The number of subjects excluded from this analysis because of frequency ties ranged from 1 to 10. In addition subjects who selected the FC cue were omitted from three of the analyses because the total group number was too small. In those three conditions, group total ranged from 1 to 3. Thus, the analysis did not include subjects selecting the FC cue most frequently except in the A-A condition where it was most frequently selected nearly as often as the 1C cue. A separate analysis of variance was computed for each of the four matching conditions to determine if a difference in reading achievement was associated with the most fre-
413
TABLE 3 SUMMARY OF F RATIOS COMPARING CUE USAGK ACROSS MATCHING CONDITION Cue
1C
FC CV VC H
Source
Mean
Total Conditions Error Total Conditions Error Total Conditions Error Total Conditions Error Total Conditions Error
if
F
1.77 4.47 1.40
239 3
3.20*
1.07 3.78 .89 1.82 5.77 1.60 1.84 10.33 1.43 1.6(5 8.47 1.20
239 3 230 239 3 23G 239 3 23(5 239 3 230
236
4.21** 3.61*
7.23** 0.74**
Note. 1C = initial consonant; FC = final consonant; CV = initial consonant and vowel; VC = final vowel and consonant; 1! = trigram reversal. * p < .05. ** p < .01.
qucntly used cue within that condition. The analysis of variance for the V-V condition was significant, F (3, 54) = 3.54, p < .05. Cue use was not associated with reading achievement in the remaining three conditions. Tukcy's a posteriori test was computed on mean pairs to determine which were significantly different. These results indicated that the mean reading score was significantly higher for subjects selecting the VC segment than for subjects selecting the 1C or VC segment in the V-V condition (Tukey value = 4.29, p < .05). Reading scores for subjects using the VC, CV, and R segments did not differ. DISCUSSION The cues used within each of the four matching tasks differed significantly. In the V-V condition, subjects most often matched on the basis of the CV segment. In the A-A condition, stimulus and response were matched on the basis of the CV and VC segments. In the two intermodal conditions, V-A and A-V, the CV segment was used significantly more frequently than the FC and VC cues. The use of all five cues varied across the four task conditions. The most fre-
414
ING RID SWENSON
quently used cue, the CV cue, was used significantly more in the, V-V condition than in the remaining three conditions. Cue choice was related to reading achievement in the V-V condition with those selecting the VC cue reading significantly better than those selecting the 1C or FC cues. In the V-V condition, subjects matched most often on the basis of the CV cue. In the earlier studies (Marchbanks & Levin, 1965; Williams, Blumberg, & Williams, 1970), beginning readers selected the initial letter cue most frequently to match a visual response to a previously seen visual stimulus. In these two studies, word segment cues were not included, but the results were consistent with those reported in the present study since beginning readers oriented toward the word beginning. The number of response omissions in this study was small, 11 of 2,400, when compared with the omission number, 246 of 2,960, reported by Kuenne and Williams (1973) using the A-A condition with kindergarteners, first, and second graders. The A-A condition in this study did not replicate the Kuenne and Williams (1973) procedure exactly since their subjects heard the stimuli and responses through car phones. To minimize omissions in this study, the first time a subject did riot respond within the time interval, the tape recorder was stopped, and the subject was encouraged to respond. Additional nonresponding was counted as an omission. The results in the A-A condition of this study are consistent with those obtained by Kuenne and Williams (1973). In both studies, beginning readers selected the CV and VC cues significantly more than the other cues to match an auditory response to an auditory stimulus, but the difference between these two cues was not significant. Although Kuenne and Williams (1973) reported a tendency to match an auditory response to an auditory stimulus by rhyming the final word segment, this tendency was not significantly greater than matching the beginning word segment. In the present study, this tendency was reversed, but again the difference was not significant. In both intermodal conditions, V-A and A-V, the CV word segment was used significantly more than the FC and VC cues. These
results indicate an orienting preference for the word beginning in the V-A and A-V conditions also. Apparently, when only the stimulus or response is auditory, rather than both, the final VC segment cue decreases in importance. Perhaps, rhyming is more effective when both the stimulus and response are presented auditorily. When the subject must verbalize cither the stimulus or the response to rhyme, he may be unable to do so, or his pronunciation may be inaccurate. The greater use of larger cues (CV and VC) that supply more information than the smaller cues (1C and FC) might be a result of the higher correspondence in English between word segments and sounds than between individual letters and sounds (Gibson, Pick, Osser, & Hammond, 1962). For this reason, attending to a word segment would seem to be a more useful word recognition strategy since it would have wider transfer value. The frequent use of the R cue in the V-V and V-A conditions may be the result of an instructional artifact since subjects were told to select the response most like the stimulus. Thus, the reversal cue selection might be based on stimulus and response similarity but not reflect a cue; actually used in word recognition. The use of the R cue in the V-V and V-A conditions might also have another explanation. Perhaps when the stimulus trigram was presented visually, the letters rather than the pronounced trigram were held in memory and were rearranged to match the reversal response. When the stimulus trigram was presented auditorily, the pronounced trigram was held in memory and a reversal was not so likely to occur. Another reason for the frequent use of the R cue may be that some of the subjects had not yet learned to orient from left to right when focusing attention on a particular trigram. Several subjects pronounced the visual trigram as its reversal, suggesting this latter possibility. In this study, word recognition cues used in the V-V condition were related to reading achievement as measured by the Metropolitan Achievement Test, Primary I Battery. The mean reading score for those that selected the VC cue most frequently was significantly higher than the mean reading
WORD RECOGNITION CUES
score for those that selected the 1C or FC cues most frequently. Apparently all of the readers tend to look at the word beginning, but the better readers select the VC cue most often. Perhaps the better readers looked at the entire word, scanning from left to right, and then matched the two visual stimuli on the basis of the last two letters, the most recently seen letters. Comparing the two reading groups, the good readers made considerably less use of the 1C and FC cues and greater use of the remaining three cues than did the poor readers. Evidently they used the larger cues that gave more information as the basis for matching the two stimuli rather than the single letter cues as did the poor readers. This result is consistent with Kucnne and Williams' (1973) finding that younger subjects tended to match single letters and older subjects tended to match trigram segments. Apparently, as reading level improves, subjects change from matching single letters to matching word segments. As previously stated, research has shown that intcrmodal matching of nonverbal stimuli is related to reading achievement. The data reported in this study suggest that the cues most frequently used to match verbal stimuli intermodally are similar to those used to match verbal stimuli intramodally. For the better readers, this integration seems to involve phoneme syllables —not individual letters or individual phonemes. Whether these letter-sound correspondences are deliberately taught or not, many children apparently learn to associate sounds with letter patterns. A question that
415
needs to be explored is what instructional procedures facilitate the integration of speech units with their graphic counterparts among children who experience great difficulty with this integration task. REFERENCES Birch, H. ( J . , & Bolmont, L. Auditory-visual integration in normal and retarded readers. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 1964, 34, 852861. Birch, H. G., & Belmont, L. Auditory-visual integration, intelligence and reading ability in school children. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1965, 20, 295-305. Gibson, E. J., Pick, A., Osser, H., & Hammond, M. The role of grapheme-phoneme correspondence in the perception of words. American Journal of Psychology, 1962, 75, 554-570. Knafle, J. D. Word perception: Cues aiding structure detection. Heading Research Quarterly, 1973, 8, 502-523. Kuenne, J. B., & Williams, J. Auditory recognition cues in the primary grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1973, 64, 241-246. Marchbanks, G., & Levin, H. Cues by which children recognize words. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1965, 56, 57-61. Miller, R. G., Jr. Simultaneous statistical inference. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966. Muehl, S., & Kremcnak, S. Ability to match information within and between auditory and visual sense modalities and subsequent reading achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1966, 67, 230-239. Vande Voort, L., Senf, G. M., & Benton, A. L. Development of audio-visual integration in normal and retarded readers. Child Development, 1972, 43, 1260-1272. Williams, J. P., Blumberg, K. L., & Williams, D. V. Cues used in visual word recognition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1970, 61, 310315. (Received August 2, 1974)
Word Recognition Cues Used in Matching Verbal Stimuli Within and Between Auditory and Visual Modalities Ingrid Swenson A rizona State University A matching-to-sample task was administered to 60 first graders under four conditions, two intramodal and two intermodal. The five matching cues (letters and segments) wore vised differentially within the four conditions with the initial segment selected most frequently in all conditions. The five cues were also used differentially across the four task conditions. Cue choice was related to reading achievement in the visual-to-visual matching condition with the good readers using the final word segment cue significantly more often than the initial and final consonant cue. The reading achievement of those selecting the reversal, initial word segment, or final word segment did not differ.
Recently, an apparently fruitful approach tween the auditory and visual senses for investigating the cues used by beginning (Muehl & Kremenak, 1966). At present, it readers when recognizing visual stimuli has is not known if the cues used to recognize been taken by Marchbanks and Levin (1965) stimuli differ in intramodal and intermodal and Williams, Blumbcrg, and Williams tasks. However, research has shown that (1970). The results of these studies indicated intermodal matching of nonverbal stimuli that letter cues were used more than word is related to reading achievement (Birch & shape and that the initial letter was the most Bclmont, 1964, 1965; Vandc Voort, Scnf, & salient cue. Benton, 1972). To date, only one study has investigated The purpose of the present study was to the cues used in auditory word recognition. extend the investigation of cues beginning Kuenne and Williams (1973) found that readers use in recognizing verbal stimuli. beginning readers most frequently used the Five cues (initial consonant, final consonant, final VC (vowel-consonant) segment to initial consonant and vowel, final vowel and auditorily identify a previously hoard stimu- consonant, and trigram reversal) were prelus. These results are consistent with sented to the same subjects for matching Knafle's (1973) results on visual cues, but a verbal stimuli between, as well as within, the comparison cannot be made because identi- visual and auditory modalities. Four decal cues were not available in both studies. laycd-recognition tasks investigated which of The reading acquisition process obviously the five cues beginning readers used to match requires that visually presented symbols be a visual stimulus to a visual stimulus (V-V), associated with familiar auditory sounds, but an auditory stimulus to a visual stimulus an analysis of reading instruction shows that (V-A), a visual stimulus to an auditory four different kinds of auditory and visual stimulus (A-V), and an auditory stimulus sensory integrations are necessary, two in- to an auditory stimulus (A-A). tramodal and two intermodal. That is, METHOD material must be integrated within and beThis article is based on the author's doctoral dissertation submitted to the Graduate College at Arizona State University. The author acknowledges the assistance of her chairman, Maurine A. Fry. Requests for reprints should be sent to Ingrid Swenson who is now at Tempo Union High School District, 1730 South Mill Avenue, Tempe, Arizona 85282.
Subjects Sixty middle-class children (30 males, 30 females) were selected randomly from the firstgrade classrooms of the participating school district. Chronological age ranged from 0-5 to 7-11 with a mean of 0-0. Kach subject was screened by the school nurse, and no visual or hearing loss was detected. Prior to the experiment, all subjects had 409
410
INGRID SWENSON
completod approximately 5 months of reading instruction using a basic text and various supplemental material. Nearly 2 months after this experiment was completed, the Metropolitan Achievement Test, Primary I Battery, was administered to 50 subjects. One subject had moved from the district. The median reading level of the remaining 59 subjects was approximately 2.0. Experimental Task Four delayed matching-to-sample tasks were used in this experiment, two intramodal and two intermodal. The two intramodal tasks were matching a visual stimulus with a previously seen visual stimulus (V-V) and matching an auditory stimulus with a previously heard auditory stimulus (A-A). The two intermodal tasks were matching an auditory stimulus with a previously seen visual stimulus (V-A) and matching a visual stimulus with a previously heard auditory stimulus (A-V). Auditory stimuli were prerecorded by the author on cassette tapes. Although the fidelity of these tapes did not correspond exactly to the spoken voice, the tapes were intelligible. The visual stimuli were printed in primary type 1M in. (3.81 cm) from the bottom of various sized index cards. For the V-A condition, the stimuli were printed on 3 X 5 in. cards. For the A-V condition, the visually presented trigrams were printed 2% in. (6.99 cm) apart on 5 X 8 in. cards. For the V-V condition, the stimulus was printed on a 3 X 5 in. card segment and the three response trigrams were printed 2% in. (0.99 cm) apart on a 5 X 8 in. card segment so the total card size was 5 X 1 1 in. Each set of visual material was fastened into a booklet by a plastic spiral binding across the top. The initial stimulus was a three-letter pronounceable nonsense trigram (CVC). Response alternatives were three CVCs, also pronounceable nonsense trigrams. A total of 14 stimuli and five types of stimulus transformations were constructed. The five transformations produced pronounceable CVCs with the same initial C, the same initial CV, the same final C, the same final VC, or a reversal (R) of the entire stimulus trigram. Ten of the 14 stimulus items in each list were included to obtain data for analysis. Over the 10 trials, each of the five transformations or cue types appeared as a response alternative six times, two times in each of the three response positions with the position order randomized, and an equal number of times with all other response alternative types. The response alternative selected as best matching the stimulus denoted the type of cue used to match the response to the stimulus item. An llth item containing a response alternative identical to the stimulus was included in each list as a check on procedural understanding. Four different random orders of the 11 stimulus items were developed. The throe remaining items were used as practice trials and were randomly ordered for each of the four lists. One of the three practice items also contained a response alternative iden-
tical to the stimulus item. Any subject who missed both identity items (practice item and list item) during the first task presentation was not included in the study. To limit the sound variations of possible CVCs, the experimenter followed Kuenne and Williams' (1973) procedure and constructed the stimulus items from 11 consonants rather than the full range of 21.' Six of the consonants were voiced: b, d, g, m, n, and v; and five were unvoiced: f, k, p, s, and t. The CVCs were constructed using either voiced or unvoiced consonants and the short sounds of the vowels a, o, and u. Kaeh consonant appeared once as the initial consonant and once as the final consonant in the stimulus trigrams. For example, if the stimulus item was "tup," the initial consonant cue trigram was las, the initial consonant arid vowel cue trigram was tuf, and the final consonant cue trigram was .sop. For the stimulus item "gam," the final consonant duo trigram was num., the final vowel and consonant cue trigram was bam, and the reversal trigram was mag. The three practice CVCs were formed with the same vowels, but the consonants j, 1, and z were used. Procedure The four matching tasks, V-V, V A, A -V, and A-A were presented individually with the presentation order counterbalanced for all subjects. The four CVC list orders were also counterbalanced across tasks for all subjects. Four green, 1-in. wooden cubes were placed in front of the subject, and he was given the following instructions whicli were essentially like those used by Kuenne and Williams (1973): We are going to play some word games. Here is how we will do it. There are four blocks in front of you. 1 am going to give each of the blocks a name. Sometimes you will see the name on a card just behind the block and sometimes you will hear the name from the tape recorder. When f give the first block a name, I want you to put your left hand on the first block. When I give the second block a name, you are to put your right hand on the second block. Then when I give the third block a name, you are to move your right hand to the third block. And finally, when I give the fourth block a name, I want you to move your right hand again, this time to the fourth block. After you have heard and/or seen all of the names, I want you to tell me which one of the three blocks that you put your right hand on has the same name or the name most like the block that you put your left hand on. When you have decided which of the last three blocks has the name most 1
The author acknowledges with appreciation the receipt of Kuenne and Williams' (1973) list of stimulus items.
411
WORD RECOGNITION CUES like the first block, pick it up and show it to me.
lowed because it did not correspond as closely to the reading situation.
Before each task was presented, three practice items were administered to assure that the subject understood the task. During the practice trials, subject's hands were guided to assure acquisition of the desired hand movements. When the subject indicated his response choice, the experimenter marked this choice on a response sheet. For the visual condition, the stimulus was presented for 3 sec and then removed from sight. The visual response card with the three alternatives was presented, and the subject made his response during the 10-sec presentation interval. Thus, the total trial time was 13 sec, 3 sec for stimulus presentation and 10 sec for the response presentation and responding. In the auditory conditions, the stimulus CVC was prcsenled, and the remainder of the 3-sec stimulus interval elapsed before the three responses were presented. The auditory response alternatives were spoken consecutively in normal speech, and the remainder of the 10-sec interval was allowed for responding. The two intermodal conditions used the same stimulus and response presentation procedure with 3 sec for stimulus presentation and 10 sec for response presentation and responding. The presentation mode for visual and auditory response items differed since the visual responses were presented simultaneously and the auditory response items were presented successively. Although both response types could have been presented successively, this procedure was not fol-
RESULTS The number of times subjects matched the 10 stimulus items on the basis of each of the five cues in the four different conditions is shown in Table 1. One subject was dropped from the study because she answered both identity items incorrectly during the initial task. Another subject was selected randomly to replace her. Responses to 11 of the 2,400 trials were omitted; that is, subjects did not make a choice. Boys omitted one response in the V-V, V-A, and A-A conditions and three responses in the A—V condition. Girls omitted one response in the V-A and A-A conditions and three responses in the A-V condition. The CV cue was the most frequently chosen cue by girls in all conditions and by boys in the V-V and A-V conditions. In the A-A condition, boys selected the VC cue most frequently, and in the V-A condition boys chose the R cue most frequently. Looking at the data for boys and girls combined, the two most frequently selected cues in the V-V and V-A conditions arc the CV and R cues. In the A-V condition, the 1C and CV
TABLE 1 FHKQUJONCY or Cuio USAGE WITHIN EACH MATCHING CONDITION Cue
Total
Visual-visual Boys Girls Total Visual- auditory Boys Girls Total Auditory-visual Boys Girls Total Auditory-auditory Boys Girls Total
1C
FC
CV
vc
R
47
20 23 43
97 103 200
53 47 100
82 08 150
299
1
300 599
0 1
38 30 74
79 87 106
50 40 90
80 72 152
299 299 598
1 1 2
71
21
90
49
66
297
3
71 142
38 59
88
53 102
47 113
297 594
3 6
52 57 109
44
75
57 54 111
299 299 598
1 1 2
59 106 52 04 115
31 75
178
71 86 157
71 146
Note. 1C = initial consonant; FC = final consonant; CV = initial consonant and vowel; VC = final vowel and consonant; II = trigram reversal.
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INGRI1) SWKNSON
cues were most frequently selected, and in the A-A condition the CV and VC cues were most frequently chosen. In all four conditions, the FC cue was chosen least often. To determine whether boys and girls differ in cue use within each recognition task, four ehi-squarcs were computed on the cue choice frequencies in each of the four conditions. None of the four chi-squares was significant, indicating that within each of the recognition tasks, boys and girls did not differ in cue use, %2 (4) = 3.22-8.28, p > .05. Four Friedman analyses of variance using the rank order of cues used by each subject were computed to determine if cue use was independent of cue type within each of the four tasks. The obtained Friedman values indicated that the cues chosen within each of the four conditions differed significantly, X2 (4) = 20.62-60.40, p < .01. Specific comparisons for the total group within each condition were1 computed using Nemenyi's a posteriori test corrected for large samples (Miller, 1966). The results of these computations are summarized in Table 2. In all four conditions, (V-V, V-A, A-V, and A-A), the CV cue was selected significantly more frequently than the FC cue;. In the V-V condition, the TC, CV, VC, and R TABLK 2 SUMMAUY OF N J O M K N Y J TKST HKSCI/I-S C O M P A R I N G GUI-: UHAOIO WITHIN MATCHING CONDITION Condition Cues compared
1C vs. VC 1C vs. CV 1C vs. VC 1C vs. It FC vs. CV VC vs. VC FC vs. It CV vs. VC CV vs. It VC vs. It
V-V
V-A
A-V
A-A
.91*
.82
1.17*
.78 .53 .53 1.00* .28 1.34* 1.32* .20
1.39* .43 .58 .33
.44 .82 .72
.05 .72 2.08* .90* 1.03* 1.12* .45 .07
1.05*
1.81* .80
.11 1.27 1.10
1.05* 1.01* .70
.55 .11
.25
.01
.72
Note. TC = initial consonant; FC - final conHoniinl,; CV = initial consonant and vowel; VC = final vowel and consonant; It = trigram reversal; V-V =• visual-visual; V-A = visual-auditory; A-V — auditory-visual; A A = auditory-auditory. * p < .01.
cues were selected significantly more often than the FC cue, and the CV cue was selected more than the fC and VC cues. In the; V-A condition, the CV and R cues were selected significantly more frequently than the FC and VC cues, fn the A-V condition, the 1C, CV, and R cues were selected significantly more than the FC cues, and the CV cue was chosen significantly more than the; VC cue. In the A-A condition, the CV and VC cues were selected significantly more than the FC cue. The initial consonant cue always was used more frequently than the final consonant cue, but the difference was significant only in the V-V and A-V conditions. In all conditions, the initial segment cue, CV, was selected more frequently than the final segment cue, VC, but this difference was not significant in the A-A condition. A comparison of cue size indicates that larger cues (CV and VC) supplying more information were selected more frequently than the smaller cues (]C and FC) 14 of 16 times. However, the; difference was significant in only 7 of the 14 comparisons. The CV segment was used significantly more than the FC cue in all conditions and more than the 1C cue in the V-V condition. The VC segment was used significantly more than the FC cue in the V-A and A-A conditions. Five separate analyses of variance were computed to determine if the use of a particular cue differed across the four task conditions (V-V, V-A, A-V, and A-A). In all five comparisons, there was a significant main effect for task but not for sex. However, the interaction of Sex X Task Condition was significant for the FC cue (p < .05). The; interaction resulted from greater use of the FC cue by girls than by boys in the, A-V condition, but greater use by boys than girls in the A-A condition. Since there was no main effect for sex, the two groups were combined, and the analyses of variance were recomputed. These results are summarized in Table 3. SchefftS's a posteriori test was computed on the F ratios for the combined group to locate the significant simple effects for each cue. The 1C cue was used significantly more in the A-V condition than in the remaining
WORD RECOGNITION CUES
three conditions (A-V versus V-V, V-A, and A-A; Schcffe' value = .53, p < .05). The FC cue was used significantly more in the V-A and A-V than in the V-V condition (V-A and A-V versus V-V; Scheffe' value = .52, p < .01). The CV cue was used significantly more in the V-V than in the other three conditions (V-V versus V-A, A-V, and A-A; Scheff6 value = .55, p < .05). The VC cue was used significantly more frequently in the A-A condition than in the three remaining conditions (A-A versus V-V, V-A, and A-V; Schefte value = .81, p < .01). The use of the R cue was significantly greater in the V-V and V-A than in the A-V and A-A conditions (V-V and V-A versus A-V and A-A; Scheffe1 value = .65, p < .01). Metropolitan Achievement Test, Primary I Battery, scores were analyzed to determine if cue use was associated with reading performance. The achievement test scores indicate that this was an unusual group of first graders since boys performed as well as girls. The total standard score (word knowledge, word analysis, and reading) means and standard deviations for boys and girls were 51.65, 49.93, 13.14, and 9.45, respectively. To determine if the preferred cue in each of the four conditions was related to reading achievement, each subject's total standard score was placed into one of five groups, according to the cue he selected most frequently. When two cues were tied for most frequent use, the score was randomly assigned to one of the cues. If more than two cues were tied for most frequent use, the subject was not included in the analysis. The number of subjects excluded from this analysis because of frequency ties ranged from 1 to 10. In addition subjects who selected the FC cue were omitted from three of the analyses because the total group number was too small. In those three conditions, group total ranged from 1 to 3. Thus, the analysis did not include subjects selecting the FC cue most frequently except in the A-A condition where it was most frequently selected nearly as often as the 1C cue. A separate analysis of variance was computed for each of the four matching conditions to determine if a difference in reading achievement was associated with the most fre-
413
TABLE 3 SUMMARY OF F RATIOS COMPARING CUE USAGK ACROSS MATCHING CONDITION Cue
1C
FC CV VC H
Source
Mean
Total Conditions Error Total Conditions Error Total Conditions Error Total Conditions Error Total Conditions Error
if
F
1.77 4.47 1.40
239 3
3.20*
1.07 3.78 .89 1.82 5.77 1.60 1.84 10.33 1.43 1.6(5 8.47 1.20
239 3 230 239 3 23G 239 3 23(5 239 3 230
236
4.21** 3.61*
7.23** 0.74**
Note. 1C = initial consonant; FC = final consonant; CV = initial consonant and vowel; VC = final vowel and consonant; 1! = trigram reversal. * p < .05. ** p < .01.
qucntly used cue within that condition. The analysis of variance for the V-V condition was significant, F (3, 54) = 3.54, p < .05. Cue use was not associated with reading achievement in the remaining three conditions. Tukcy's a posteriori test was computed on mean pairs to determine which were significantly different. These results indicated that the mean reading score was significantly higher for subjects selecting the VC segment than for subjects selecting the 1C or VC segment in the V-V condition (Tukey value = 4.29, p < .05). Reading scores for subjects using the VC, CV, and R segments did not differ. DISCUSSION The cues used within each of the four matching tasks differed significantly. In the V-V condition, subjects most often matched on the basis of the CV segment. In the A-A condition, stimulus and response were matched on the basis of the CV and VC segments. In the two intermodal conditions, V-A and A-V, the CV segment was used significantly more frequently than the FC and VC cues. The use of all five cues varied across the four task conditions. The most fre-
414
ING RID SWENSON
quently used cue, the CV cue, was used significantly more in the, V-V condition than in the remaining three conditions. Cue choice was related to reading achievement in the V-V condition with those selecting the VC cue reading significantly better than those selecting the 1C or FC cues. In the V-V condition, subjects matched most often on the basis of the CV cue. In the earlier studies (Marchbanks & Levin, 1965; Williams, Blumberg, & Williams, 1970), beginning readers selected the initial letter cue most frequently to match a visual response to a previously seen visual stimulus. In these two studies, word segment cues were not included, but the results were consistent with those reported in the present study since beginning readers oriented toward the word beginning. The number of response omissions in this study was small, 11 of 2,400, when compared with the omission number, 246 of 2,960, reported by Kuenne and Williams (1973) using the A-A condition with kindergarteners, first, and second graders. The A-A condition in this study did not replicate the Kuenne and Williams (1973) procedure exactly since their subjects heard the stimuli and responses through car phones. To minimize omissions in this study, the first time a subject did riot respond within the time interval, the tape recorder was stopped, and the subject was encouraged to respond. Additional nonresponding was counted as an omission. The results in the A-A condition of this study are consistent with those obtained by Kuenne and Williams (1973). In both studies, beginning readers selected the CV and VC cues significantly more than the other cues to match an auditory response to an auditory stimulus, but the difference between these two cues was not significant. Although Kuenne and Williams (1973) reported a tendency to match an auditory response to an auditory stimulus by rhyming the final word segment, this tendency was not significantly greater than matching the beginning word segment. In the present study, this tendency was reversed, but again the difference was not significant. In both intermodal conditions, V-A and A-V, the CV word segment was used significantly more than the FC and VC cues. These
results indicate an orienting preference for the word beginning in the V-A and A-V conditions also. Apparently, when only the stimulus or response is auditory, rather than both, the final VC segment cue decreases in importance. Perhaps, rhyming is more effective when both the stimulus and response are presented auditorily. When the subject must verbalize cither the stimulus or the response to rhyme, he may be unable to do so, or his pronunciation may be inaccurate. The greater use of larger cues (CV and VC) that supply more information than the smaller cues (1C and FC) might be a result of the higher correspondence in English between word segments and sounds than between individual letters and sounds (Gibson, Pick, Osser, & Hammond, 1962). For this reason, attending to a word segment would seem to be a more useful word recognition strategy since it would have wider transfer value. The frequent use of the R cue in the V-V and V-A conditions may be the result of an instructional artifact since subjects were told to select the response most like the stimulus. Thus, the reversal cue selection might be based on stimulus and response similarity but not reflect a cue; actually used in word recognition. The use of the R cue in the V-V and V-A conditions might also have another explanation. Perhaps when the stimulus trigram was presented visually, the letters rather than the pronounced trigram were held in memory and were rearranged to match the reversal response. When the stimulus trigram was presented auditorily, the pronounced trigram was held in memory and a reversal was not so likely to occur. Another reason for the frequent use of the R cue may be that some of the subjects had not yet learned to orient from left to right when focusing attention on a particular trigram. Several subjects pronounced the visual trigram as its reversal, suggesting this latter possibility. In this study, word recognition cues used in the V-V condition were related to reading achievement as measured by the Metropolitan Achievement Test, Primary I Battery. The mean reading score for those that selected the VC cue most frequently was significantly higher than the mean reading
WORD RECOGNITION CUES
score for those that selected the 1C or FC cues most frequently. Apparently all of the readers tend to look at the word beginning, but the better readers select the VC cue most often. Perhaps the better readers looked at the entire word, scanning from left to right, and then matched the two visual stimuli on the basis of the last two letters, the most recently seen letters. Comparing the two reading groups, the good readers made considerably less use of the 1C and FC cues and greater use of the remaining three cues than did the poor readers. Evidently they used the larger cues that gave more information as the basis for matching the two stimuli rather than the single letter cues as did the poor readers. This result is consistent with Kucnne and Williams' (1973) finding that younger subjects tended to match single letters and older subjects tended to match trigram segments. Apparently, as reading level improves, subjects change from matching single letters to matching word segments. As previously stated, research has shown that intcrmodal matching of nonverbal stimuli is related to reading achievement. The data reported in this study suggest that the cues most frequently used to match verbal stimuli intermodally are similar to those used to match verbal stimuli intramodally. For the better readers, this integration seems to involve phoneme syllables —not individual letters or individual phonemes. Whether these letter-sound correspondences are deliberately taught or not, many children apparently learn to associate sounds with letter patterns. A question that
415
needs to be explored is what instructional procedures facilitate the integration of speech units with their graphic counterparts among children who experience great difficulty with this integration task. REFERENCES Birch, H. ( J . , & Bolmont, L. Auditory-visual integration in normal and retarded readers. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 1964, 34, 852861. Birch, H. G., & Belmont, L. Auditory-visual integration, intelligence and reading ability in school children. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 1965, 20, 295-305. Gibson, E. J., Pick, A., Osser, H., & Hammond, M. The role of grapheme-phoneme correspondence in the perception of words. American Journal of Psychology, 1962, 75, 554-570. Knafle, J. D. Word perception: Cues aiding structure detection. Heading Research Quarterly, 1973, 8, 502-523. Kuenne, J. B., & Williams, J. Auditory recognition cues in the primary grades. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1973, 64, 241-246. Marchbanks, G., & Levin, H. Cues by which children recognize words. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1965, 56, 57-61. Miller, R. G., Jr. Simultaneous statistical inference. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966. Muehl, S., & Kremcnak, S. Ability to match information within and between auditory and visual sense modalities and subsequent reading achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1966, 67, 230-239. Vande Voort, L., Senf, G. M., & Benton, A. L. Development of audio-visual integration in normal and retarded readers. Child Development, 1972, 43, 1260-1272. Williams, J. P., Blumberg, K. L., & Williams, D. V. Cues used in visual word recognition. Journal of Educational Psychology, 1970, 61, 310315. (Received August 2, 1974)
