Online activation of L1 Danish orthography enhances spoken word recognition of Swedish

Abstract It has been reported that speakers of Danish understand more Swedish than vice versa. One reason for this asymmetry might be spoken is closer to written We hypothesise literate use their orthographic knowledge decode Swedish. To test hypothesis, first-language (L1) were confronted with in a translation task. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) elicited study the online responses during decoding operations. Results showed ERPs words whose pronunciation was inconsistent spelling significantly negative-going consistent between 750 ms and 900 after stimulus onset. Together higher word-recognition scores items, our data provide strong evidence activation L1 orthography enhances word recognition Danish.