Grapheme-phoneme processing of single words

Often used in cognitive studies measuring reaction times and in functional imaging studies, the subtraction paradigm is based on the comparison of per formance on tasks presupposed to refer to different cognitive levels of pro cessing. Within the framework of the study of phonological processing of wo rds, manipulating the grapheme-phoneme transparency of stimuli can represen t a means of counteracting the methodological drawbacks inherent to the sub traction paradigm. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine the eff ect of the level of difficulty of grapheme-phoneme matching on the processi ng of transparent and nontransparent words. Grapheme-phoneme matching was c arried out both on the final syllable of words and on sublexical segments w ithin the word. The results indicate that processing is faster for the tran sparent than for the nontransparent stimuli. This task will now have to he reintroduced in brain imaging studies aiming to look at different levels of difficulty for grapheme-phoneme matching. (C) 2001 Academic Press.