[PS-2.5] Prior knowledge explains individual differences in the reading aloud of English nonwords

Ulicheva, A. & Rastle, K.

Royal Holloway, University of London

Prior experience shapes our performance on various tasks, particularly those that involve language (Siegelman et al., 2018). This talk will take a deep dive into individual differences that are particularly striking in the reading aloud of English nonwords where a single nonword such as KNOUCH can evoke dozens of different responses across subjects (Pritchard et al., 2012). We will present evidence that this variability boils down to differences in orthography-to-phonology statistics that we have extracted from a life-long reading experience. We will conclude by arguing that individual differences in nonword reading are a function of individuals? vocabulary sizes.