Spoken word recognition and the influence of lexical competitors at the beginning of a word

Abstract

Marslen-Wilson and Welsh (1978) suggest that the initial portion of a word activates multiple lexical candidates in memory, forming a ‘‘cohort’’ of competitors. Marslen-Wilson (1987) further states that the number of competitors in the cohort does not affect the speed and accuracy of spoken word recognition. Monosyllabic CVC words with the same number of lexical competitors (using a substitution-based metric to estimate competitor set size) but varying in the percentage of competitors sharing the same initial phoneme as the target word were presented in an auditory naming task and an auditory lexical decision task. Words with a smaller proportion of competitors sharing the same initial phoneme as the target word were responded to more quickly than words with a larger proportion of competitors sharing the same initial phoneme as the target word. These results suggest that the number of candidates activated in memory does affect spoken word recognition, and that the initial portion of a word is important in processing. The implications of these results for models of spoken word recognition are discussed. [Work supported by NIH-NIDCD Training Grant DC-00012.]