Studies in psycholinguistics suggest that age of acquisition has an effect on the speed of reading words.
[1] Alternatively, it has been suggested that the age of acquisition is related to the fact that an earlier learned word has been encountered more often.
[23][24][25][26] The influence of AoA on recognition memory is likely to be present, using a pure and mixed lists.
[30] The AoA effects result from reduced neuroplasticity during the learning of mappings between representations over time.
[33][34] Opaque or deep languages such as English are more likely to show AoA effects, as a result of this mapping between letter and sound being irregular in opaque languages, leading to a larger AoA effects, whereas transparent or shallow languages such as Spanish are more likely to demonstrate small or no AoA effects, as the mapping between letter and sound is regular and late-acquired words can benefit from the structure created by early-acquired words.
Chang et al.[39] argued that in contrast to written words, which has an often arbitrary relationship between letters and sounds, the strong connection between phonology and semantics is crucial for reading.
The relationship between sound production and perception are more consistent, allowing readers to leverage their spoken language skills to decode written words.