The true colors of reading: Literacy enhances lexical-semantic processing in rapid automatized and discrete object naming

Semantic knowledge is a defining property of human cognition, profoundly influenced by cultural experiences. In this study, we investigated whether literacy enhances lexical-semantic processing independently of schooling. Three groups of neurotypical adults - unschooled illiterates, unschooled ex-illiterates, and schooled literates - from the same residential and socioeconomic background in Portugal were tested on serial rapid automatized naming (RAN) and on discrete naming of everyday objects (concrete concepts) and basic color patches (abstract concepts). The performance of readers, whether schooled literate or unschooled ex-illiterate, was not affected by stimulus category, whereas illiterates were much slower on color than object naming, irrespective of task. This naming advantage promoted by literacy was not significantly mediated by vocabulary size. We conclude that literacy per se, regardless of schooling, contributes to faster naming of depicted concepts, particularly those of more abstract categories. Our findings provide further evidence that literacy influences cognition beyond the mere accumulation of knowledge: Literacy enhances the quality and efficiency of lexical-semantic representations and processing.