Exploring influences of representational and procedural literacy on spoken word recognition: Evidence from psychometric network analysis and structural equation modelling

Cultural experiences can strongly shape human cognition. Prior research has yielded mixed evidence on whether literacy—a culturally acquired skill—affects spoken language processing. Using an individual differences approach, we examined whether literacy predicts the speed of spoken word recognition. Using a large dataset (Hintz et al., 2025) that is unprecedented in size (number of participants) and depth (number of skills assessed), 655 typically developed native Dutch adults between 18 and 30 years carried out a lexical decision task: Participants listened to Dutch words and nonwords and judged their lexical status as quickly as possible. Drift diffusion modelling of response times provided drift rate estimates indexing the speed of auditory evidence accumulation. To clarify which aspects of literacy matter, we distinguished between representational literacy (vocabulary, orthographic knowledge, author recognition) and procedural literacy (self-paced reading fluency, rapid automatized naming). Psychometric network analysis and structural equation modelling showed that spoken word recognition was reliably predicted by representational literacy, whereas procedural literacy contributed little once shared variance was controlled. Domain-general skills (processing speed, working memory, nonverbal reasoning) explained additional variance but did not mediate literacy effects. Our findings indicate that extensive written language experience enhances spoken word recognition primarily by sharpening and enriching linguistic representations, rather than by improving reading-related procedures. Literacy’s beneficial influence on spoken word processing thus resides primarily at the representational level.