Much recent research on the front end of visual word recognition has focused on how letters with and without diacritic marks are identified. In this study we report three masked priming letter match experiments which examine the processing of two types of diacritic marks in Arabic, a language/writing system rich in diacritics. Experiment 1 focused on diacritic dots that are obligatory and signal a phonemic contrast in consonants. The results showed an oft-replicated asymmetric diacritic priming pattern, namely, that for a target letter with a diacritic (e.g., ش, /$/), the prime without the diacritic (e.g., س, /s/) facilitated recognition almost as much as the identity prime (e.g., ش–ش= س–ش).; in contrast, a target without a diacritic is primed less strongly by the prime with the diacritic than by the identity prime (e.g., س–س < ش–س). Experiment 2 used vowel diacritics which also signal a phonemic contrast when present and collectively play the role of a morpheme, but are not obligatory and appear only in text for children or in the Quran. The results revealed a novel pattern in which both target letters with (e.g., سَ, /sa/) and without (e.g., س, /s/) vowel diacritics were equally facilitated by identity and related primes (e.g., س–سَ = سَ–سَ and سَ–س = س–س). Experiment 3 replicated these effects using a within-participant design. These results are discussed in light of current views of letter and diacritic processing.

中文翻译：

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阿拉伯语中辅音和元音变音符号的不同作用

最近关于视觉单词识别前端的许多研究都集中在如何识别带有和不带有变音符号的字母。在这项研究中，我们报告了三个掩码启动字母匹配实验，这些实验检查了阿拉伯语（一种富含变音符号的语言/书写系统）中两种变音符号的处理情况。实验 1 重点关注强制性的变音符号点，并表示辅音中的音位对比。结果显示了一种经常重复的不对称变音符号启动模式，即，对于带有变音符号的目标字母（例如，Í，/$/），没有变音符号的启动字母（例如，S，/s/）促进识别几乎与与恒等素数非常相似（例如，Í–ô= Ë–ô）。；相反，对于没有变音符号的目标，带变音符号的素数的引发力不如恒等素数的引发力强（例如， ¡–¡ < Í–Ë）。实验 2 使用元音变音符号，这些变音符号在存在时也表示音位对比，并共同发挥语素的作用，但不是强制性的，仅出现在儿童文本或古兰经中。结果揭示了一种新颖的模式，其中带元音变音符号（例如，Sَ，/sa/）和不带元音变音符号（例如，S，/S/）的目标字母都同样受到身份和相关素数的促进（例如，S-Sَ=Sَ） –Σ 和 Σ–Σ = Σ–Σ)。实验 3 使用参与者内部设计复制了这些效果。这些结果是根据当前字母和变音符号处理的观点进行讨论的。