Visual processing of connected and unconnected letters and words in Arabic

Abstract

A letter-reading task (Experiments 1) and a word-reading task of regular words (Experiments 2) and of visually distorted words (Experiments 3) were used to examine the reciprocal interaction between phonological encoding strategies and visual factors, such as the global word shape, local letters shape, and inter-letter spacing. Our participants comprised Arabic readers familiar with different letter and word forms (connected vs. unconnected: without inter-letter spaces vs. with inter-letter spaces). In addition, this study is the first instance of the word length effect being studied in an Arabic context using different word lengths (3 vs. 5 letters). The average reading times for Arabic words are affected by the word connectivity, since the average reading time is shorter for connected than unconnected words of all word lengths (3 and 5 letters) reflecting the activation of lexical route, which processes letters in letter strings in parallel. As well, the average reading times for Arabic words are affected by the word length, since the average reading time is shorter for 3-letter words than 5-letter words reflecting the activation of non-lexical route, which processes letters in letter strings sequentially. Length effect is the signature of the non-lexical route due to its seriality caused by assembled phonology.