Conditional automaticity: Attention alters sound-spelling conflict effect

Poster Session F - Tuesday, March 10, 2026, 8:00 – 10:00 am PDT, Fairview/Kitsilano Ballrooms

Niki Sinha¹ (nsinha7@uwo.ca), Marc Joanisse¹; ¹Western University

This reading study tested automatic recognition of familiar sound-spelling pairings using event-related potentials in EEG. In word recognition there is a known conflict effect which occurs when two words share similar spelling but do not rhyme. The goal of this study was to determine how task-related attention influenced conflict effects between rhyme and spelling in words presented too briefly to be consciously perceived. We recorded EEG data in 41 English-speaking adult participants as they completed tasks that focused their attention on either rhyme or spelling. In both tasks a masked prime word was presented for 33ms which either matched the target word in spelling and rhyme (cost/frost) or matched in spelling but not rhyme (host/frost). Results showed distinct conflict effects between the rhyme-focused task and the spelling-focused task. While there were no differences in behavioural reaction time between the two tasks, the spelling task had a significant N400 difference between trials with matching and non-matching rhyme. By contrast, the rhyme task showed no N400 differences between trials. These results indicate that goal-directed attention can influence how words are recognized even when they are only automatically perceived. Overall, this study adds to our understanding of automatic and controlled processes and the interplay between them which contributes to reading fluency.

Topic Area: ATTENTION: Other