Assimilation and Anticipation in Continuous Spoken Word Recognition

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Abstract English coronal place assimilation is one of many productive phonological processes that change the phonological form of words. It may, for example, cause speakers to pronounce green as something approximating [grin] or [grim] in different contexts. The present work examines how listeners recognize words that have undergone this modification. Current accounts are broadly differentiated by two issues: (1) whether listeners generally recognize words that have undergone word-final, single-feature modification, and (2) how context effects in the perception of assimilated speech are interpreted. Experiment 1 employs form priming to demonstrate that listeners tolerate single-feature mismatch resulting from both phonologically plausible and phonologically implausible word form modification when recognizing words heard in context. Experiments 2 and 3 employ phoneme monitoring and negative rhyme priming paradigms, respectively, to demonstrate that listeners use assimilation to anticipate upcoming context. Evidence for anticipation is contrasted with claims that listeners use context to regressively infer the underlying form of place-assimilated segments.