LESS SKILLED READERS HAVE LESS EFFICIENT SUPPRESSION MECHANISMS

One approach to understanding the component processes and mechanisms u nderlying adult reading skill is to compare the performance of more sk illed and less skilled readers on laboratory experiments. The results of some recent experiments employing this approach demonstrate that le ss skilled adult readers suppress less efficiently the inappropriate m eanings of ambiguous words (e.g., the playing card vs. garden tool mea nings of spade), the incorrect forms of homophones (e.g., patients vs. patience), the typical-but-absent members of scenes (e.g., a tractor in a farm scene), and words superimposed on pictures. Less skilled rea ders are not less efficient in activating contextually appropriate inf ormation; in fact, they activate contextually appropriate information more strongly than more skilled readers do. Therefore, one conclusion that can be drawn from these experiments is that less skilled adult re aders suffer from less efficient suppression mechanisms.