2024/08/08 by Athanassios Protopapas, Katerina Katopodi, Angeliki Altani +3 · 1 voice
Psychology · Arts and Humanities · Computer Science · #Second Language Acquisition and Learning #Lexicography and Language Studies #Natural Language Processing Techniques
paper · doi:10.1037/edu0000900
openalex publication_date 2024/08/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
In this study we present a framework for conceptualizing and analyzing responses to serial naming (RAN) tasks, in which participants sequentially name a set of stimuli that are simultaneously presented in an array format. Our aim is to better understand how these tasks are processed and why they are associated with reading skills, particularly word reading fluency. We analyzed responses by 298 Greek children in Grades 1, 3, and 5 to serial and discrete naming of digits, dice, objects, number words, and words. We measured the durations of silent and speech intervals per item in each task and grade, and tested predictions about their relations based on a hypothesis of two overlapping processing stages. We found that articulation times were longer in the serial tasks, further modulated by task demands. Total times were faster for serial than for discrete tasks, and the differences between the two (termed serial advantage) were increasingly associated with the duration of speech intervals, consistent with efficient scheduling. Serial naming rate approached or exceeded the limits imposed by processing time (operationalized as discrete onset latency), consistent with increasing processing overlap. These patterns were primarily observed for digits, number words, and—to some extent—dice, after Grade 1. Object naming seemed to pose different cognitive demands, stably across grades. Word reading exhibited the greatest differences between grades, consistent with rapid development of automaticity. We interpret this pattern of findings within a cascaded processing framework, in which performance is determined by the efficiency of cognitive scheduling of successive operations, constrained by susceptibility to interference from adjacent items. We propose that reading fluency is predicted by serial naming because it is also largely governed by the same scheduling constraints.