ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0478-3535

Date of Award

Fall 2025

Language

English

Embargo Period

12-13-2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Psychology

Program

Cognitive Psychology

First Advisor

Heather Sheridan

Committee Members

Gregory Cox, Barbara Juhasz

Keywords

age of acquisition, proofreading, orthographic processing, individual differences, eye tracking, lexical quality

Subject Categories

Cognitive Psychology

Abstract

Age-of-acquisition (AoA) effects, the processing advantage for words learned early in life, are well-documented across various tasks. While various theories attempt to explain these effects, the underlying mechanisms remain debated. This dissertation examined the role of orthographic processing in AoA effects through three experiments emphasizing orthographic rather than semantic processing. In Experiment 1, participants completed an eye-tracking and proofreading task to detect spelling errors in sentences containing early- versus late-acquired words, followed by a spelling dictation task to assess individual differences in spelling ability. Experiment 2 employed a spelling dictation task to test whether early-acquired words show better spelling accuracy than late-acquired words. Experiment 3 used a same-different judgment task to examine how quickly participants can discriminate between correct and misspelled versions of early- versus late-acquired words, along with a similarity ratings task to control for visual confounds. The stimuli across all experiments were carefully matched for potentially confounding variables, including word frequency, imageability, and OLD-20. Results from Experiments 1 and 2 revealed better performance for early-acquired words, providing support for theories that propose AoA effects arise from multiple levels of lexical processing, including orthography. However, Experiment 3 showed no AoA effects in same-different judgments, revealing boundary conditions for when these processing advantages emerge. Together, these findings provide convergent evidence that orthographic processing contributes to AoA effects while also establishing boundary conditions. Theoretical implications, limitations, and future directions are also discussed.

License

This work is licensed under the University at Albany Standard Author Agreement.

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