Abstract
We investigated the role of the syllable during speech processing in German, in an auditory-auditory fragment priming study with lexical decision and simultaneous EEG registration. Spoken fragment primes either shared segments (related) with the spoken targets or not (unrelated), and this segmental overlap either corresponded to the first syllable of the target (e.g., /teis/ – /teisti/), or not (e.g., /teis/ – /teistləs/). Similar prime conditions applied for word and pseudoword targets. Lexical decision latencies revealed facilitation due to related fragments that corresponded to the first syllable of the target (/teis/ – /teisti/). Despite segmental overlap, there were no positive effects for related fragments that mismatched the first syllable. No facilitation was observed for pseudowords. The EEG analyses showed a consistent effect of relatedness, independent of syllabic match, from 200 to 500 ms, including the P350 and N400 windows. Moreover, this held for words and pseudowords that differed however in the N400 window. The only specific effect of syllabic match for related prime—target pairs was observed in the time window from 200 to 300 ms. We discuss the nature and potential origin of these effects, and their relevance for speech processing and lexical access.
Highlights
In a familiar language, listeners perceive speech as a sequence of discrete and meaningful units, though the spoken input consists of a continuous and often noisy signal
We investigated the role of the syllable during speech processing in German, in an auditory-auditory fragment priming study with lexical decision and simultaneous EEG registration
If syllables play a role in German speech perception, related primes that precisely match the initial syllable, as in /lus/ – /lus.tig/, and /lust/ – /lust.los/
Summary
Listeners perceive speech as a sequence of discrete and meaningful units, though the spoken input consists of a continuous and often noisy signal. Speakers provide few reliable cues on how to organize this continuous signal into units of meaning. Speech is highly variable between, and even within, speakers. A question that is still not fully resolved is how this variable and noisy input is mapped onto word forms and meaning. One idea is that the input is mapped onto stored sublexical units, which aid access to lexical representations of word form. Among the candidates proposed as mediators between the acoustic input and the lexicon, two have received special attention: phonemes and syllables (Cutler et al, 1986; Dumay et al, 2002; Zwitserlood, 2004)
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