PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE Symposium on Reading Research LESS SKILLED READERS HAVE LESS EFEICIENT SUPPRESSION MECHANISMS

Abstract—One approach io understand-ing the component processes and mech-anisms underlying adult reading skill is to compare the performance of more skilled and less skilled readers on labo-ratory experiments. The results of some recent experiments employing this ap-proach demonstrate that less skilled adult readers suppress less efficiently the inappropriate meanings of ambigu-ous words (e.g., the playing card vs. gar-den tool meanings of spadej, the incor-rect forms of homophones (e.g., patients V5. patience), the typical-but-absent members of scenes (e.g., a tractor in a farm scene), and words superimposed on pictures. Less skilled readers are not less efficient in activating contextuaity ap-propriate information; in fact, they acti-vate contextually appropriate informa-tion more strongly than more skilled readers do. Therefore, one conclusion that can be drawn from these experi-ments is that less skilled adult readers suffer from less efficient suppression mechanisms. For most adults, reading feels like an automatic, well-learned habit, but years of cognitive psychological research doc-ument that simply reading a five-letter word requires the orchestration of tnany component mental processes and mech-anisms. One approach lo identifying these component processes and mecha-tiisms involves comparing adult readers, all of whom read within the "normal" range of adult reading skill, but some of whom are more skilled and some of whom are less skilled. Comparing these more and less skilled adult readers ' per-formance on various laboratory tasks can help identify the mechanisms under-lying their difference in skill. Address correspondence to M.A. Gems