Method of print exposure assessment: Application in psycholinguistics and adaptation for the Russian language

Abstract

Exposure to print represents the amount of time one devotes to reading. Print exposure is an essential measure of individual differences in research on language processing: it affects word recognition, reading speed, reading comprehension, oculomotor activity during the reading etc. An objective tool to assess the level print exposure is demanded in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics. There are subjective methods to estimate print exposure like reading diaries and questionnaires, but they are based on introspection which makes the estimation inaccurate and exaggerating. So an objective tool — Author Recognition Test is considered to be more effective. It was first developed for English by K. Stanovich and R. West, who suggested a design based on the signal detection theory. This test provides a relative measure reflecting individual differences in print exposure. The first English version of Author Recognition Test cannot be representative for other languages and cultures, so it has to be adapted — Chinese, Korean, Dutch, German versions have been developed recently. In this article we present the Russian version of Author Recognition Test. The test shows high reliability. Author Recognition Test score shows a significant correlation with vocabulary size, spelling skills, and text comprehension skill. To sum up, this study is the first to develop a Russian version of Author Recognition Test. We show that Russian native speakers’ level of print exposure measured by this tool is correlated to some offline reading-related tasks.