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In this study two experiments were developed to investigate the orthographic neighborhood effect on word recognition in 4th grade Brazilian Portuguese speaking school children. In the first, a lexical decision task of the Go/No-Go type was conducted, controlling the lexical activation index of words and pseudowords, an inhibitory effect of the number of neighbors (N) and of the number of neighbors of greater frequency than the target word (NF) was observed. In the second, a lexical decision task under a time-limit, the stimuli were presented briefly (250 ms) followed by a mask and the speed of the responses was emphasized. Compared with previous studies with adults in which, in these conditions, facilitative effects of N were observed, in this second experiment, the children continued to show an inhibitory effect of NF. It was argued that the orthographic neighborhood effect is genuinely inhibitory for Brazilian Portuguese and children, in contrast to adults, can present difficulties in employing strategies in the lexical decision task.
Nesse estudo, foram realizados dois experimentos para investigar o efeito de vizinhança ortográfica no reconhecimento de palavras, em crianças brasileiras da quarta série do ensino fundamental. No primeiro experimento, uma tarefa de decisão lexical do tipo Go/No-Go, observou-se um efeito inibitório do número de vizinhos (N) e do número de vizinhos de maior freqüência que a da palavra-alvo (NF). No segundo, uma tarefa de decisão lexical com tempo fixo, observou-se um efeito inibitório de NF. Em estudos com adultos, porém, efeitos facilitadores de N foram observados. Verificou-se que o efeito de vizinhança ortográfica é genuinamente inibitório no português do Brasil e que crianças, ao contrário de adultos, podem ter dificuldades em utilizar estratégias na tarefa de decisão lexical.
