Substituted-letter and transposed-letter effects in a masked priming paradigm with French developing readers and dyslexics

The aim of the study was to undertake a behavioral investigation of the development of automatic orthographic processing during reading acquisition in French. Following Castles and colleagues’ 2007 study (Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 97, 165–182) and their lexical tuning hypothesis framework, substituted-letter and transposed-letter primes were used in a masked priming paradigm with third graders, fifth graders, adults, and phonological dyslexics matched on reading level with the third graders. No priming effect was found in third graders. In adults, only a transposed-letter priming effect was found; there was no substituted-letter priming effect. Finally, fifth graders and dyslexics showed both substituted-letter and transposed-letter priming effects. Priming effects between the two groups were of the same magnitude after response time (RT) z-score transformation. Taken together, our results show that the pattern of priming effects found by Castles and colleagues in English normal readers emerges later in French normal readers. In other words, language orthographies seem to constrain the tuning of the orthographic system, with an opaque orthography producing faster tuning of orthographic processing than more transparent orthographies because of the high level of reliance on phonological decoding while learning to read.

► We study automatic orthographic processing during reading acquisition in French.
► Substitute-letter and transposed-letter primes were used in a masked-priming paradigm.
► We find that priming effects emerges later in French compared with English.
► Similar patterns of priming effects were found in dyslexics and fifth graders.
► We consider that language orthographies constrain the tuning of the orthographic system.