Independent and interacting effects of sentential context and phonological neighborhood structure in spoken word production

Abstract

Models of speech production typically invoke at least two cognitive systems: a structurally static lexicon and a dynamic, compositional system. A speaker must have access to a network of lexical representations that is vested with certain intrinsically associated information (e.g., words' phonological structure), but typical speech involves sequential, online production of words to construct meaningful sentences. Thus, a complete model of speech communication must overlay the lexicon's static architecture with a dynamic, context-driven system. The present study examines effects of these two systems on spoken words' phonetic realizations. Participants produced monosyllabic words beginning with voiceless stop consonants (e.g., coat) that varied in their phonological neighborhood density. Targets were produced aloud after subjects silently read sentence contexts that were either highly predictive (e.g., She sported her stylish new fur...) or relatively neutral (e.g., The artist had trouble drawing the...). R...