Aye, aye, aye, aye: orthography enhances rapid word reading in an exploratory study

Rapid Word Reading, a novel word‐reading efficiency measure, was used to determine if articulations or processing times associated with reading the word ‘aye’ were enhanced through the phonological or orthographic qualities contained in the preceding word. In the experiment, ‘aye’ followed either an identical ‘aye’, the homophones ‘I’ or ‘eye’ or high‐frequency (HF) unrelated English words. The words that preceded ‘aye’ were chosen to provide a graduated degree of phonological and orthographic information available to enhance the efficiency of recognising the following word. Semantically, phonologically, and orthographically independent high‐frequency words preceded ‘aye’ and served as a baseline measure of the articulation and processing times of ‘aye’. ‘I’ preceded ‘aye’ to provide enhanced recognition through phonological association alone. Phonological and partial orthographic associations were provided by ‘eye’ before ‘aye’, and complete phonological and orthographic associations were provided by ‘aye’ before ‘aye’. Repeated measures analysis showed that ‘aye’ was processed fastest when it followed an identical ‘aye’. The processing time enhancement for this condition was significantly faster than all other conditions. Additionally, the mean articulation duration of ‘aye’ was significantly slower when ‘aye’ followed an identical ‘aye’ than when it followed HF words. The findings documented the importance of separating phonological and orthographic information in English homophones.