{"pk":29406,"title":"Context variability promotes generalization in reading aloud:Insight from a neural network simulation","subtitle":null,"abstract":"How do neural network models of quasiregular domains learnto represent knowledge that varies in its consistency withthe domain, and generalize this knowledge appropriately?Recent work focusing on spelling-to-sound correspondencesin English proposes that a graded “warping” mechanismdetermines the extent to which the pronunciation of a newlylearned word should generalize to its orthographic neighbors.We explored the micro-structure of this proposal by training anetwork to pronounce new made-up words that were consistentwith the dominant pronunciation (regulars), were comprisedof a completely unfamiliar pronunciation (exceptions), orwere consistent with a subordinate pronunciation in English(ambiguous). Crucially, by training the same spelling-to-soundmapping with either one or multiple items, we tested whethervariation in adjacent, within-item context made a givenpronunciation more able to generalize. This is exactly whatwe found. Context variability, therefore, appears to act as amodulator of the warping in quasiregular domains.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"quasiregularity"},{"word":"neural network models"},{"word":"contextvariability"},{"word":"read aloud"},{"word":"spelling-to-sound correspondences"},{"word":"reading acquisition."}],"section":"Neural Networks","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4kv6t8bm","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Ian","middle_name":"D.","last_name":"Miller","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Toronto Scarborough","department":""},{"first_name":"Nicolas","middle_name":"","last_name":"Dumay","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Exeter","department":""},{"first_name":"Mark","middle_name":"","last_name":"Pitt","name_suffix":"","institution":"Ohio State University","department":""},{"first_name":"Brian","middle_name":"","last_name":"Lam","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Toronto","department":""},{"first_name":"Blair","middle_name":"C.","last_name":"Armstrong","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Toronto","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2020-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/29406/galley/19266/download/"}]}