TY - GEN A1 - Pauly, Dennis Nikolas A1 - Nottbusch, Guido T1 - The Influence of the German Capitalization Rules on Reading T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - German orthography systematically marks all nouns (even other nominalized word classes) by capitalizing their first letter. It is often claimed that readers benefit from the uppercase-letter syntactic and semantic information, which makes the processing of sentences easier (e.g., Bock et al., 1985, 1989). In order to test this hypothesis, we asked 54 German readers to read single sentences systematically manipulated by a target word (N). In the experimental condition (EXP), we used semantic priming (in the following example: sick → cold) in order to build up a strong expectation of a noun, which was actually an attribute for the following noun (N+1) (translated to English e.g., “The sick writer had a cold (N) nose (N+1) …”). The sentences in the control condition were built analogously, but word N was purposefully altered (keeping word length and frequency constant) to make its interpretation as a noun extremely unlikely (e.g., “The sick writer had a blue (N) nose (N+1) …”). In both conditions, the sentences were presented either following German standard orthography (Cap) or in lowercase spelling (NoCap). The capitalized nouns in the EXP/Cap condition should then prevent garden-path parsing, as capital letters can be recognized parafoveally. However, in the EXP/NoCap condition, we expected a garden-path effect on word N+1 affecting first-pass fixations and the number of regressions, as the reader realizes that word N is instead an adjective. As the control condition does not include a garden-path, we expected to find (small) effects of the violation of the orthographic rule in the CON/NoCap condition, but no garden-path effect. As a global result, it can be stated that reading sentences in which nouns are not marked by a majuscule slows a native German reader down significantly, but from an absolute point of view, the effect is small. Compared with other manipulations (e.g., transpositions or substitutions), a lowercase letter still represents the correct allograph in the correct position without affecting phonology. Furthermore, most German readers do have experience with other alphabetic writing systems that lack consistent noun capitalization, and in (private) digital communication lowercase nouns are quite common. Although our garden-path sentences did not show the desired effect, we found an indication of grammatical pre-processing enabled by the majuscule in the regularly spelled sentences: In the case of high noun frequency, we post hoc located parafovea-on-fovea effects, i.e., longer fixation durations, on the attributive adjective (word N). These benefits of capitalization could only be detected under specific circumstances. In other cases, we conclude that longer reading durations are mainly the result of disturbance in readers' habituation when the expected capitalization is missing. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 622 KW - orthography KW - eye-tracking KW - reading KW - noun KW - parafoveal and foveal processing Y1 - 2020 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-460857 SN - 1866-8364 IS - 622 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Heß, Stefan A1 - Mousikou, Petroula A1 - Schroeder, Sascha T1 - Morphological processing in developmental handwriting production BT - Evidence from kinematics T2 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - In this study, we investigated effects of morphological processing on handwriting production in beginning writers of German. Children from Grades 3 and 4 were asked to copy words from a computer screen onto a pen tablet, while we recorded their handwriting with high spatiotemporal resolution. Words involved a syllable-congruent visual disruption (e.g., "Golfer"), a morpheme-congruent visual disruption (e.g., "Golfer"), or had no disruption (e.g., "Golfer"). We analyzed productions in terms of Writing Onset Duration and Letter Duration at the onset of the second syllable ("f" in "Gol.fer") and the onset of the suffix ("e" in "Golf_er"). Results showed that durations were longer at word-writing onset only for words with a morpheme-congruent visual disruption. Also, letter durations were longer at the onset of the second syllable (i.e., "-fer") and shorter at the onset of the suffix (i.e., "-er") only for words with a syllable-congruent visual disruption. We interpret these findings within extant theories of handwriting production and offer an explanation for the observed effects before and during trajectory formation. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Humanwissenschaftliche Reihe - 852 KW - Handwriting production KW - Spelling KW - Syllables KW - Morphemes KW - Kinematics Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-587363 SN - 0922-4777 SN - 1573-0905 IS - 4 ER -