Decoding

Platform: Unity · French, Italian · verified today

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Description

As part of the CRAB (Computerized Reading-related Assessment Battery), the Decoding task assesses word-reading decoding by requiring participants to read a series of printed items aloud, in two blocks: real words and pseudowords (pronounceable non-words that force phonological, letter-by-letter decoding rather than whole-word recognition). Spoken responses are recorded via microphone and scored offline through an automatic speech recognition (ASR) alignment pipeline. This task targets sublexical decoding efficiency, for which strong associations with reading acquisition have been reported in the developmental literature. Authored in Unity for the lab; the catalog preview is a recorded video walkthrough, and the full task is available as a downloadable Unity build.

Contact & Lab

Lab

Brain and Learning Lab

unige.ch

Principal investigator

Daphné Bavelier

University of Geneva

Task contact

Angela.Pasqualotto@unige.ch

Contributors

Angela Pasqualotto

University of Geneva

Conceptualization

Hugo Farajallah

University of Geneva

Software

Zeno Menestrina

University of Geneva

Software

Citation

No citation available — contact the task author.

Credits

Developed at the Brain and Learning Lab (University of Geneva) under Angela Pasqualotto (task conception) and Zeno Menestrina (software developer) as part of the CRAB (Computerized Reading-related Assessment Battery) project. Software updated by Hugo Farajallah and Zeno Menestrina (2025). Adapted from Unity to HTML/JS by Hugo Farajallah in 2026.

Domains

Learning

Psycholinguistics

Part of suite:

CRAB

Target Population

Age Categories

primary

Clinical Status

non-clinical

Additional Notes

Children learning to read

Languages

French

Italian

Run under

Engine

Unity

Operating system

Windows · Mac · Android

Format

Online + in-lab

Modalities

behavioral

Task Outputs

What it measures

Word-reading decoding efficiency, contrasting real-word reading (lexical route) with pseudoword reading (sublexical/phonological route)

Output formats

audio

Per-trial spoken-response recording (uploaded for offline ASR scoring)

custom

Unity WebGL internal data collection: ASR-aligned transcription, error markup, and per-trial measures

Experimental design

Trial-based

Conditions

lexicality

word

pseudoword

— Block type: real-word reading vs. pseudoword reading

Key measures for analysis

Reading accuracy per block (word vs. pseudoword), from ASR alignment
Response latency to onset of reading

Recorded variables

Variable	Role	Type	Description	Unit
`phase`	independent	string	Block type Values: word, pseudo	-
`config_id`	metadata	string	Identifier of the stimulus list configuration used for the trial	-
`config`	independent	array	The word or pseudoword item(s) presented for reading	-
`answers`	dependent	array	ASR-transcribed spoken response	-
`markup`	dependent	string	Error markup from ASR alignment against the expected reading	-
`measures`	dependent	array	ASR-derived per-trial scoring measures from Needleman-Wunsch alignment	-
`timestamps`	dependent	array	Per-response timing markers from the recording	-
`file_url`	metadata	string	Path to the uploaded audio recording of the response	-

Provenance

Source: nccr-seed

Fetched: 2026-02-04

Last verified: 2026-07-17 — passed

Other tasks in this suite

CRAB

Barrage

Corsi Block-Tapping

Multiple Object Tracking

Rhyme Recognition

Vocabulary

Visual Orthography

Phoneme Deletion

Text Reading

Quick Actions

Preview

View Source Code

Download Task

Web build

Suggest Edit

Additional Information

Created Date

2026-02-04

Last Modified

2026-07-17