3: Orthography and Letter recognition

What does it mean that writing is secondary to language?

Writing represents language but is not language itself; language is acquired naturally, while writing is a later technology that must be taught.

How does writing transform language?

It turns a message that unfolds in time into a lasting arrangement in space.

What is protowriting?

An early symbol system that records information but does not encode one specific linguistic message.

How does protowriting differ from modern writing?

Modern writing systematically represents units of a particular language; protowriting does not.

What is a pictogram?

A direct representation of an object or event that does not necessarily map to a specific spoken word or sound.

How does a logogram differ from a pictogram?

A logogram represents a specific morpheme or word with meaning and pronunciation; a pictogram directly depicts an object or event.

What is a grapheme?

The smallest contrastive unit in a writing system.

What does a grapheme represent in a logographic system?

A morpheme or whole word.

What does a grapheme represent in a syllabic system?

A syllable.

What does a grapheme represent in an alphabetic system?

A phoneme, including vowels and consonants.

What does a grapheme represent in a consonantal system?

Primarily a consonant; vowels are absent or rarely represented.

How do you classify an unfamiliar writing system?

Identify what each grapheme represents: morpheme/word, syllable, phoneme, or consonant.

What are the characteristics of Japanese kanji?

It is logographic: each grapheme represents a morpheme or word with meaning and pronunciation.

What are the characteristics of Japanese hiragana?

It is syllabic: each grapheme represents a syllable-like spoken unit.

What do you know when you know a letter?

Its different visual forms, name, sound, use in words, and motor plan for writing it.

What is an allograph?

A stored case- and font-specific visual form of a letter.

What is an abstract letter identity (ALI)?

A single representation of a letter independent of case, font, size, or appearance.

How do allographs and ALIs differ?

Allographs preserve specific visual forms; the ALI recognizes those different forms as the same letter.

What does an ALI connect?

A letter's visual forms to its name, sound, use in words, and writing motor plan.

What was Rothlein and Rapp's method?

They compared brain-response similarity for letter pairs related by identity, visual shape, spoken name, or writing motor plan.

What pattern would identify an ALI brain region?

Similar responses to different forms sharing one letter identity, but not to letters related only by shape, name, or motor plan.

What did Rothlein and Rapp find?

A region responded similarly to forms sharing an abstract letter identity but not to other letter relationships.

What did Rothlein and Rapp's results demonstrate?

The brain contains a neural representation of abstract letter identity.