Dynamics of Orthographic Processing – DyTO

There are two major goals of this project: 1) the understanding of the linguistic mechanisms involved in orthography and 2) the identification of the cognitive and psycholinguistic factors underlying learning and mastery of the orthographic system. The project will examine the temporal sequences of events involved in lexical and grammatical spelling in different production contexts (isolated words, sentences and texts) with the aim or understanding the functioning of different levels of production and their interactions.
This type of investigation has been undertaken in the study of lexical orthography. However, studies have considered only the temporal latency patterns during writing, despite the fact that different and parallel processes engaged during writing of words in isolation and writing of morphological markers (ie., subject-verb agreement) during the writing of sentences have been observed (Delattre et al., 2006 ; Lambert et al., in press). This project will consider other indicators of the processing dynamics by applying and systematising the analysis of pauses and writing speed combined with the analysis of eye movements (Eye and Pen©, Alamargot et al., 2006; Chesnet & Alamargot, 2005). In particular, the identification of the linguistic units capturing visual attention during writing (progressive and regressive fixations, ocular saccades) should allow for inferring the nature of the processes involved during pauses or in parallel with the written trace on which kinetics may fluctuate.
This project requires an interdisciplinary cooperation between cognitive psychology (CeRCA, EMC) and linguistics (DDL). The linguistic approach to written production allows for the identification and characterisation of the language produced at the levels of orthography, morphology, syntax and text. The cognitive approach will allow for consideration of the linguistic units within a processing system with limited capacity, assuming a temporal distribution of the processes involved. Thus, the two disciplines will work together in order to establish connections between linguistic units and the on-line temporality of processing.
Task 2, “Dynamics of lexical orthography: processing of infra-lexical/within word units” (coordinator S. Pacton) is designed to determine the role play by graphotactic, morphological and ortho-syllabic units during the written production of words in isolation. Task 3 “Dynamics of grammatical orthography: pre-graphic control procedures during subject-verb agreement and memory capacity” (coordinator F. Rigalleau) will allow for the study of the processes involved in assigning subject-verb agreement during production of sentences which attract errors (le chien des voisins mangent) in order to characterise precisely the temporal course (the implementation and dynamics) of pre-graphic control preceding the production of the inflection (Largy & Fayol, 2001).
Task 3, “Beyond isolated units: interactions during processing” (coordinator B. Lété) will test the models for processing isolated units within larger writing contexts, ranging from the production of many words, many sentences and finally texts. Indeed, writing and revising of a text requires processes involved in lexical and grammatical orthography, but also processes which govern the syntax and the semantics of a text - processes which mobilise considerable space in memory.
Task 4, “Innovation” will provide outcomes at technological level and will enhance the classification of eye and graphomotoric movements.
This project will considerably advance our understanding of the learning and functioning of lexical and grammatical orthography during the production of isolated words and during the production of texts. The developmental and comparative perspectives adopted will lead to innovative recommendations for teaching and remediation.