Grant: Research Tools and Instruments - Category 1 (<$150,000)

Learning to read requires forming associations between the sounds (i.e., phonology), spellings (i.e., orthography), and meanings (i.e., semantics) of words. While there is a general consensus that phonology influences reading acquisition, theories differ in the importance they assign to phonological information in skilled readers. So-called strong phonological theories propose that computation of phonology occurs early and automatically in the course of reading. An alternative view assigns less importance to phonology, arguing that phonological influences are dependent on factors such as reading skill. The focus of my research program is to define the time course of phonological processing as a means of adjudicating between these opposing views. This will be achieved through the application of event-related brain potential (ERP) measures. ERP methodology is used extensively by researchers to study the time course of cognitive processes in the brain. ERP measures provide extremely good temporal information (i.e., on the order of milliseconds) concerning when cognitive processing occurs in the brain. ERP measures are analogous to a movie camera that films cognitive processing moment-by-moment. The ERP system that is funded by this proposal will be used to study the time-line of phonological processing in skilled readers. This methodology will permit me to examine, for instance, whether phonology is activated before or after the meaning of a word is computed. Knowledge of how skilled reading is accomplished is critical to improving our understanding of reading disabilities and for developing effective tools for literacy education.