Phonologically mediated priming in spoken and printed word recognition.

Abstract

Three priming studies investigated the role of phonology in both spoken- and printed-word recognition. Homophone primes (e.g., dough and doe), made ambiguous through auditory presentation (e.g., Idol), produced significant semantic priming effects on target words related to multiple interpretations of the ambiguous prime (e.g., bread and deer). In contrast, homophone primes made unambiguous through visual presentation failed to produce comparable priming effects. For example, the phonologically mediated priming effects from dough to deer and from doe to bread were found to be small relative to the direct semantic priming effects from dough to bread and from doe to deer. These results indicate that phonology does not play the same mediating role during printed-word recognition as it does during spoken-word recognition. Instead, orthography appears to constrain the activation of lexical entries during printed-word recognition. One issue that has stimulated lively debate among reading researchers is whether phonology contributes to the activation of meaning during printed-word recognition in the same manner as it does during spoken-word recognition. According to the phonological mediation hypothesis, the phonological code for a printed word is generated prior to lexical access, and this phonological code subsequently activates all corresponding lexical entries. For example, under this hypothesis, readers encountering a printed word such as dough activate all lexical entries related to both bread and deer. In contrast, according to the direct-access hypothesis, only those lexical entries corresponding to the orthography of the printed word become activated. As a consequence, readers encountering the printed word dough activate only those lexical entries related to bread.