Copying research has mostly focused either on skilled or developing readers, rarely contrasting performance in both groups. Using the copying paradigm to investigate differences between skilled and developing readers is important to specify the cognitive processes that occur during copying, and how the nature and time-course of copying changes at different points on a developmental trajectory of reading ability. In this opening enquiry, the aim was to investigate the units over which encoding and production operates during a single word handwritten copying task.
3.1.1 Encoding whole words as complete units.
One way individuals could encode information during copying is by encoding visual information about the letter identities and letter positions, then on the basis of this visual input, engage in a cognitive process of lexical identification in which a mental representation of a whole word unit is activated. (as in Afonso, Suárez-Coalla, & Cuetos, 2015; Inhoff, 1991; Kandel, Alvarez, & Vallée, 2006; Lambert, Kandel, Fayol, & Espéret, 2008). That is to say, copiers may go beyond the literal encoded information of letter forms when they mentally represent the stimulus in readiness for written production. In this case, characteristics of the printed stimulus in relation to linguistic units at a higher level representation than its low level letter forms might be expected to impact on encoding behaviour. Specifically, if copiers did engage in lexical
identification of word units, not just encoding of letter units, then characteristics of the word unit that impact on the ease of lexical identification might be expected to modulate encoding behaviour. Time spent looking at the stimulus, as an indicator of time spent encoding and lexically identifying the stimulus, would then vary in relation to the cognitive difficulty an individual experienced during encoding and lexical
identification. In this case, it could be expected that factors seen to impact on eye movement behaviour in other tasks that involve visual encoding and lexical identification, such as reading, would also affect eye movement behaviour during copying in a similar manner. In this case, findings in relation to a copying paradigm would be expected to fall in line with established reading research, demonstrating word- based influences on eye movements. During adults’ sentence reading, two robust word- based effects are word length, whereby long words attract longer gaze durations
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compared to short words (Just & Carpenter, 1980; Rayner, 1998), and word frequency, whereby lower frequency words attract longer gaze durations compared to higher frequency words (Rayner & Duffy, 1986). When word length and frequency were orthogonally manipulated, there was an interaction such that the difference in gaze durations between high- and low frequency long words was greater than the difference between high- and low- frequency short words (Pollatsek, Juhasz, Reichle, Machacek, & Rayner, 2008; Rayner, Sereno, & Raney, 1996). Even though children have only had a few years of print exposure, there has been enough exposure by age 8 years to drive down lexical access times for words that children encountered more often compared to words encountered less frequently. This has been shown in reduction of gaze durations for higher frequency words, even accounting for age of acquisition (Joseph, Nation, & Liversedge, 2013). Across lexical decision tasks and silent or oral sentence reading, children consistently spent more time processing low frequency compared to high frequency words (Ducrot, Pynte, Ghio, & Lété, 2013; Huestegge, Radach, Corbic, & Huestegge, 2009; Hyönä & Olson, 1995), even controlling for word length (Blythe, Liversedge, Joseph, White, & Rayner, 2009). This suggests children consistently engaged in word recognition during reading tasks. Also, similarly to influences of word length in adult eye movement behaviour (Rayner & McConkie, 1976), children spend more time fixating long compared to short words (Blythe, Häikiö, Bertam, Liversedge, & Hyönä, 2011; Huestegge et al., 2009; Hyönä & Olson, 1995), even controlling for word frequency and predictability (Joseph, Liversedge, Blythe, White, & Rayner, 2009).
If encoding was based on retrieved whole words, there may be similar gaze behaviour in copying as in reading: more demanding stimuli would require more extensive cognitive processing. If processing drives eye movement behaviour, because high frequency words would take less time to recognise than low frequency words, gaze times on higher frequency words would be shorter.
3.1.2 Encoding whole and/or partial words in a piecemeal way. Previous studies have shown that task demands of copying influenced the amount of text that was visually encoded (Inhoff & Wang, 1992) and how much semantic processing influenced eye movements (Inhoff et al., 1986). It might be that lexical processing may not always occur in the same way during copying as in during reading (as in Kandel & Perret, 2015). If this is the case, another way individuals could encode information is by identifying and constructing multiple representations of all the
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letter identities in order (separately or in letter clusters). If lexical identification did not complete, word frequency might have less of an influence on encoding time. For longer words, there would still be more letters to encode, so gaze times would be longer.
As working memory is limited (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974), copiers may encode some, but not all, of the letters. In this case, a partial-word representation could be constructed that would not be influenced by word frequency. Copiers would then need at least one secondary encoding episode, copying partial word representations
incrementally until production had completed (as in Rieben, Saada-Robert, & Moro, 1997; Rieben & Saada-Robert, 1991, 1997). If copiers encoded a similar number of letters during each encoding episode for long and short words, there would be more successive encoding episodes for longer words. The number of gaze lifts should increase, and total encoding time overall should be longer. Also, there may not be effects of word length on the initial encoding episode, because only the first few letters of either a short or a long word would be encoded (regardless of its entire length).
3.1.3 Forgetting.
Irrespective of the nature of encoding, forgetting might occur, preventing the entire representation being maintained. As word length increases, the likelihood of forgetting should be greater (Baddeley, Thomson, & Buchanan, 1975). So, gaze lifts should be more likely for longer words. In addition, even when individuals know they must remember words, high frequency words were still easier to recall compared to lower frequency words (Balota & Neely, 1980). During copying, if copiers encoded whole words, gaze lifts should be less likely on higher than lower frequency words, as it should be easier to maintain higher frequency word representations. In piecemeal
encoding, there should be no influence of frequency on probability of returning for secondary encoding.
3.1.4 Producing whole words as complete units.
If whole word representations are encoded and maintained, the unit used in production could also be an entire word. It has been suggested (Inhoff, 1991) that linguistic knowledge is “consulted” when copiers plan typed production events, and during this motor planning, lexical units are activated so that production is planned directly from a pre-existing, stable, long term representation, rather than one or several constructed representations that could be more vulnerable to errors. If this is the case
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during handwritten copying, we should expect production of lower frequency words to take longer and see greater gaze times on the paper during production.
3.1.5 Producing whole and/or partial words as piecemeal units.
Alternatively, production of handwritten words could be planned and written in units smaller than the word (as in Afonso, Alvarez, & Kandel, 2014; Afonso & Álvarez, 2011; Kandel et al., 2006; Kandel, Alvarez, & Vallée, 2008; Kandel, Peereman,
Grosjacques, & Fayol, 2011; Kandel, Spinelli, Tremblay, Guerassimovitch, & Alvarez, 2012; Kandel & Spinelli, 2010; Lambert et al., 2008; Sausset, Lambert, & Olive, 2013; Sausset, Lambert, Olive, & Larocque, 2012). In this case, word frequency would not influence production and there should be no influence of frequency on gaze times during production. However, as it would take longer to physically produce more letters, word length should influence production regardless of whether whole-word or
piecemeal representations are involved.