Speech input like [byt] has been shown to facilitate not only the subsequent processing of an identical target word /byt/ but also that of a target word /tyb/ that contains the same phonemes in a diff Show more
Speech input like [byt] has been shown to facilitate not only the subsequent processing of an identical target word /byt/ but also that of a target word /tyb/ that contains the same phonemes in a different order. In the TISK model of spoken word recognition (Hannagan et al., Frontiers in psychology, 4, 563, 2013), this transposed-phoneme priming effect could result from the activation of shared position-independent phonemes (i.e., a sublexical effect) or pre-activation of the lexical representation corresponding to the transposed-phoneme target word by the prime (i.e., a lexical effect). In this study, we aimed to distinguish sublexical and lexical contributions to transposed-phoneme priming effects by (1) manipulating the lexical status of primes, and (2) examining if transposed-phoneme effects occur when targets are nonwords. An inhibitory transposed-phoneme priming effect was observed when target nonwords (e.g., /tad/) were preceded by transposed-phoneme word primes (e.g., /dat/). In contrast, there was a small non-significant facilitatory priming effect when target nonwords (e.g., /nuk/) were preceded by transposed-phoneme nonword primes (/kun/). These findings point to a greater contribution of lexical representations than sublexical representations in driving transposed-phoneme priming effects. Show less
We used a novel nonword detection task to examine the lexical competition principle postulated in most models of spoken word recognition. To do so, in Experiment 1 we presented sequences of spoken wor Show more
We used a novel nonword detection task to examine the lexical competition principle postulated in most models of spoken word recognition. To do so, in Experiment 1 we presented sequences of spoken words with half of the sequences containing a nonword, and the target nonword (i.e., press a response key whenever you detect a nonword in the sequence) could either be phonologically related (a phonological neighbor) or unrelated to the immediately preceding word. We reasoned that the reactivation of a phonological neighbor during target nonword processing should delay the moment at which a nonword decision can be made. Contrary to our hypothesis, participants were faster at detecting nonwords when they were preceded by a phonological neighbor compared with an unrelated word. In Experiment 2, an inhibitory effect of phonological relatedness on nonword decisions was observed in a classic priming situation using the same set of related and unrelated word-nonword pairs. We discuss the implications of these findings in regard to the main models of spoken word recognition, and conclude that our specific experimental set-up with phonological neighbors embedded in spoken sentences is more sensitive to cooperative interactions between co-activated sublexical representations than lexical competition between co-activated lexical representations, with the latter being modulated by whether or not the words compete for the same slot in time. Show less