Lexical uniqueness effects on phonemic restoration

Abstract

Phonemic restoration is a powerful auditory illusion in which listeners hear a part of a word that has in fact been replaced by another sound. Two experiments explore whether the strength of the illusion is affected by whether a single lexical item could be restored. In Experiment 1, more perceptual restoration was found for stimuli that were multiply restorable (e.g., “_egion” → “legion” or “region”) than for lexically unique ones (e.g., “_esion” → “lesion”). In Experiment 2, lexical uniqueness was examined as a function of time: Words become lexically unique when enough has been heard to eliminate all alternatives. This manipulation also affected the strength of the illusion. The results complement those of other techniques in supporting an active role for lexical representations in the perception of speech.