Phonological Priming Effects Research Articles

Using Korean to investigate phonological priming effects without the influence of orthography

Two experiments investigated whether the phonological properties of visually presented words influence the process of word identification. Experiments 1(a) and 2 examined masked phonological priming effects when naming was the response measure. Two types of effect were demonstrated, a so-called ''onset effect'' and homophone priming effect. Experiment 1(a) found an onset effect for primes and targets written in alphabetic Hangul. This effect was larger the more initial letters were shared but there was no effect when the prime and target shared only final letters. These results suggest that the effect was generated in a serial fashion. A companion lexical decision version Experiment 1(b) showed no onset effects. Experiment 2 capitalised on a feature of the Korean writing system whereby homophonic primes and targets can have no orthographic overlap. In this experiment, homophone priming was found in the absence of any onset effects. It was concluded that the phonology of a printed word is processed rapidly and likely plays a role in word identification.

Orthographic analogies and phonological priming effects

Bowey, Vaughan and Hansen (1998) have demonstrated that once phonological priming effects have been taken in account, there is no orthographic analogy effect for words with common end patterns (e.g. beak–peak). Goswami (1999) has argued that the study on which this claim is based is methodically flawed. This paper attempted to verify Bowey et al.’s claim by using an improved clue‐word procedure with a group of beginning readers, whose phonological awareness and vocabulary was also assessed. The results indicated that while rime‐based analogies seem to be phonological rather than orthographic in nature, beginning readers are able to use an orthographic analogy strategy when reading words that have similar beginnings (e.g. beak–bean).

Orthographic analogy use and phonological priming effects in non-word reading

The orthographic analogy effect for rime-based analogies has been debated, and theoretical arguments relating to the role of rhyme awareness in reading development have been questioned. This study assessed whether children beginning to read are able to make genuine orthographic analogies based on rime similarity. A non-word version of the clue word task was used to compare children’s performance at reading orthographically and phonologically similar target items and phonologically similar items only. They were also assessed on their ability to make analogies between the beginnings and endings of words. The results were consistent with the suggestion that orthographic analogy use is available to beginning readers as a reading strategy, and that rime-based analogies are easier to make than analogies at the beginning of words. However, rhyme awareness was found to account for variance in orthographic analogy use between the beginnings of words, but not for rime-based analogies. The implications of this for the theoretical role of rhyme awareness in reading development are discussed.

Phonological priming in spoken word recognition with bisyllabic targets

Four experiments were carried out to examine phonological priming effects on bisyllabic target words. In Experiments 1a and 1b, auditorily presented monosyllabic word and pseudoword primes facilitated lexical decisions to auditorily presented bisyllabic words. This facilitation was found for primes overlapping the targets' initial syllable (e.g., "ver" [worm in French] primed "VERTIGE" [VERTIGO]) and for primes overlapping the targets' final syllable (e.g., ''tige'' [stem] primed "VERTIGE"). Experiment 2 replicated the initial-overlap effect for monosyllabic word primes using a crossmodal (auditory-visual) method; however no facilitation was observed for final-overlap nor for bisyllabic primes (e.g., "verger" [orchard] did not facilitate VERTIGE). In Experiment 3, the initial overlap facilitation effect was replicated in a naming task. These results are interpreted in terms of activation and deactivation of candidates.

Phonological, semantic, and repetition priming with homophones.

The current study investigated semantic, repetition, and phonological priming using heterographic homonyms (homophones) as stimuli in a lexical decision task. As in previous research, reliable semantic priming and repetition effects were found In addition, the statistical additivity of these two effects was replicated using homophones as stimuli. Using homophones, a reliable phonological priming effect was found when 10-16 intervening trials were used This effect was also statistically independent of semantic priming indicating the independence of the mechanisms responsible for semantic and phonological priming. The magnitude of the phonological priming effect was also significantly less than the magnitude of the repetition effect. This difference in effect magnitude was taken to indicate that the repetition of phonological information is not a primary contributor to the repetition effect.

Phonological priming effects on speech onset latencies and viewing times in object naming.

An earlier experiment (Meyer, Sleiderink, & Levelt, 1998) had shown that speakers naming object pairs usually inspected the objects in the required order of mention (left object first) and that the viewing time for the left object depended on the word frequency of its name. In the present experiment, object pairs were presented simultaneously with auditory distractor words that could be phonologically related or unrelated to the name of the object to be named first. The speech onset latencies and the viewing times for that object were shorter after related distractors than after unrelated distractors. Since this phonological priming effect, like the word frequency effect, most likely arises during word-form retrieval, we conclude that the shift of gaze from the first to the second object is initiated after the word form of the first object's name has been accessed.

Phonological priming effects on word retrieval and tip-of-the-tongue experiences in young and older adults.

Phonological priming effects on word retrieval and tip-of-the-tongue experiences in young and older adults.

On the role of bias in dissociated phonological priming effects: A reply to Goldinger (1999).

Phonological priming studies have revealed two dissociated effects: low-similarity facilitation and highsimilarity interference (Hamburger & Slowiaczek, 1996; Slowiaczek & Hamburger, 1992). Because these two effects are influenced by different variables, they most likely reflect different processes that occur during auditory word recognition. Goldinger (1999) suggests that one bias is responsible for all phonological priming effects. In this reply, we argue against such a position. Although low similarity facilitation is likely the product of this bias, the data on phonological priming indicate that the dissociated highsimilarity interference cannot be produced by the same mechanism. Instead, the data indicate that high-similarity interference may reflect lexical processes.

Only the shadower knows: comment on Hamburger and Slowiaczek (1996).

The phonological priming effect may reflect basic processes in spoken word perception and has thus been a central topic of recent research. In this journal, Hamburger and Slowiaczek (1996) reported phonological priming data collected in a shadowing task. They replicated a prior study (Slowiaczek & Hamburger, 1992), but added new procedures to minimize bias. After observing inhibitory priming in a "low-expectancy" condition, they concluded that facilitatory priming reflects perceptual/response bias, but that inhibitory priming reflects automatic processes of lexical access. This commentary critiques Hamburger and Slowiaczek's method and presents new data that demonstrate persistent biases in primed shadowing. I suggest that such biases reflect natural, context-sensitive listening strategies.

Visual word recognition in bilinguals: evidence from masked phonological priming.

Bilingual written language representation was investigated with the masked phonological priming paradigm. Pseudohomophonic and control primes of French target words were used to show that Dutch-French bilinguals exhibit the same pattern of phonological and orthographic priming as native French speakers, which suggests that the same processes underlie first-and second-language processing. It was also found that for bilinguals, but not monolinguals, it is possible to prime a target word of the second language with a homophonic stimulus (either word or nonword) of the first language. This interlingual phonological priming effect was of the same size as the intralingual priming effect. Implications for theories of bilingual written language representation and for the interpretation of the masked phonological priming paradigm are discussed.

Activation of phonological codes during eye fixations in reading.

Two experiments addressed the issue of whether phonological codes are activated early in a fixation during reading using the fast-priming technique (S. C. Sereno & K. Rayner, 1992). Participants read sentences and, at the beginning of the initial fixation in a target location, a priming letter string was displayed, followed by the target word. Phonological priming was assessed by the difference in the gaze duration on the target word between when the prime was a homophone and when it was a control word equated with the homophone on orthographic similarity to the target. Both experiments demonstrated homophonic priming with prime durations of about 35 ms, but only for high-frequency word primes, indicating that lexicality was guiding the speed of the extraction of phonological codes early in a fixation. Evidence was also obtained for orthographic priming, and the data suggest that orthographic and phonological priming effects interact in a mutually facilitating manner.

Differential effects of phonological priming on Chinese character recognition

We report two experiments investigating the effect of phonological priming on the recognition of two types of Chinese characters: compound targets which contain separate radical components; and integrated targets which do not contain separate radicals. We used a masked priming paradigm with varying prime-target exposure durations. In Experiment 1, phonological priming effects on compound target recognition were found following a 50 msec SOA. However, there was no evidence of phonological priming on integrated target recognition at this SOA. In Experiment 2 we investigated the time course of phonological priming effects at three prime-target SOAs (30, 50 and 80 msec) in a between-subjects design. Semantic priming effects were also investigated. Phonological priming effects on compound target recognition were found following the 50 msec and the 80 msec SOAs. However, there was no evidence of phonological priming on integrated target recognition at any SOA. Semantic priming effects on both compound and integrated target recognition were found in the 50 msec and the 80 msec SOA conditions suggesting that phonological and semantic activation are co-incidental during compound character recognition. We conclude that character type constrains the activation of phonology during Chinese character recognition.

Phonological priming and auditory event-related brain potentials

Phonological priming effects on auditory event-related brain potentials were compared across different numbers of syllables shared between target words and preceding prime words or pseudowords. All items of words and pseudowords consisted of 3 syllables, and the subject's task was to make a judgment whether the item belonged to a designated category. A large negative wave (N400), commencing at about 250 ms poststimulus and lasting for about 700 ms, was observed irrespective of primes and targets. When targets were preceded by word-primes that shared the first one or two syllables, the onset of N400 at the frontal site was earlier and the initial negative-going phase was steeper than in other conditions. In contrast, the magnitude of N400 to targets was reduced, when the primes were pseudowords that shared the first two syllables. These two types of early and later phonological priming effects were interpreted to reflect facilitations during spoken word recognition at the pre-lexical (phonological) and post-lexical (semantic or contextual integration) levels, respectively.

Masked Orthographic and Phonological Priming in Visual Word Recognition and Naming: Cross-Task Comparisons

The effects of briefly presented, masked, and orthographically and/or phonologically related nonword primes on the recognition of subsequently presented target words were investigated in different experimental tasks. Robust effects of orthographic and phonological priming were observed in both the lexical decision and the perceptual identification tasks, with no such effects appearing in the word naming task, except for orthographic priming effects at the shortest prime exposures. Further investigation of this marked dissociation across experimental tasks showed that word naming is particularly sensitive to shared onsets in the masked priming paradigm and that robust rhyme priming does occur when primes and targets have different onsets. The lexical decision task, on the other hand, showed priming effects independently of whether prime and targets shared onsets. These results are discussed within the framework of a bimodal interactive activation model of visual word recognition and naming.

Repeated prime-target presentations do not eliminate repetition and phonological priming in naming digits

In a recent article, Ferrand, Grainger and Segui (1994), using the masked priming paradigm with prime exposures brief enough to prevent prime identification, reported that the prior masked visual presentation of the same phonological word prime facilitates picture naming independently of whether the prime was the same word or a pseudohomophone. Moreover, in terms of percent facilitation, this priming effect was similar in size, suggesting that it resulted from the preactivation in memory of the phonologial representation corresponding to the picture name. In the present study, we extend these results using (1) a new set of picture stimuli such as digit numbers, (2) a small number of highly trained subjects, and (3) repeated prime-target stimuli. We replicated this phonological priming effect and its similarity in size with the repetition effect: this effect remained robust even after the subjects had become very familiar with the stimuli, suggesting that it is a highly automatized and mandatory effect.

Phonological Codes Are Automatically Activated During Reading: Evidence From an Eye Movement Priming Paradigm

Subjects read sentences containing target words that were homophones (words with a single pronunciation but different spellings) while their eye movements were recorded A prime word was presented briefly at the onset of fixation on the target region The prime for a given target (e g, beach) was either identical to the target (beach), a phonologically similar word (the homophone beech), a visually similar nonhomophone (bench), or a dissimilar word (noise) Phonological priming effects were assessed by comparing fixation times on the target when it was preceded by the homophone versus the visually similar word Results suggest that phonological codes are automatically activated during eye fixations in reading

Neurophysiological Manifestations of Phonological Processing: Latency Variation of a Negative ERP Component Timelocked to Phonological Mismatch

Abstract Two experiments examined phonological priming effects on reaction times, error rates, and event-related brain potential (ERP) measures in an auditory lexical decision task. In Experiment 1 related prime-target pairs rhymed, and in Experiment 2 they alliterated (i.e., shared the consonantal onset and vowel). Event-related potentials were recorded in a delayed response task. Reaction times and error rates were obtained both for the delayed and an immediate response task. The behavioral data of Experiment 1 provided evidence for phonological facilitation of word, but not of nonword decisions. The brain potentials were more negative to unrelated than to rhyming word-word pairs between 450 and 700 rnsec after target onset. This negative enhancement was not present for word-nonword pairs. Thus, the ERP results match the behavioral data. The behavioral data of Experiment 2 provided no evidence for phonological Facilitation. However, between 250 and 450 msec after target onset, i.e., considerably earlier than in Experiment 1, brain potentials were more negative for unrelated than for alliterating Word-word and word-nonword pairs. It is argued that the ERP effects in the two experiments could be modulations of the same underlying component, possibly the N400. The difference in the timing of the effects is likely to be due to the fact that the shared segments in related stimulus pairs appeared in different word positions in the two experiments.

Phonological priming effects in stutterers

It is hypothesized that stuttering is caused by a perturbation of phonological encoding, i.e., the construction of the fully specified articulatory program on the basis of word form information stored in the mental lexicon. Nine stutterers and nine nonstutterers participated in a phonological priming experiment. In each trial, they were required to utter one word from a set of five as fast as possible upon visual presentation of a related cue word. In the so-called homogeneous conditions, the response words shared initial segments, either the initial consonant or the initial consonant and the subsequent vowel. In the heterogeneous conditions, the response words were phonemically unrelated. Nonstutterers had shorter speech onset latencies in the homogeneous conditions than in the heterogeneous conditions, and the difference was larger for the words sharing both consonant and vowel than for the words sharing the initial consonant only. In most stutterers, a reduction of speech onset occured only when the words shared both consonant and vowel. These results are taken to indicate that in stutterers the encoding of noninitial parts of syllables, particularly the (stressed) vowel, is delayed. The primary symptoms of stuttering—repetition or prolongation of syllable-initial segments—are argued to result from attempts at executing a syllable prior to the incorporation of correct vowel information in the articulatory plan.

Phonological priming of lexical retrieval in speech production.

We report a series of three experiments exploring phonological priming effects in speech production. In all cases, subjects repeated aloud auditorily presented primes and then named picture targets. Experiment 1 showed that targets were named faster when prime and target shared phonemes but only when these occupied the same word or syllabic positions. Experiment 2 showed that the degree of facilitation was unaffected by the lexicality of the prime or whether shared phonemes occurred early or late in the syllable. Experiment 3 examined the effect of the lexicality of the prime at different intervals between response and prime in an attempt to tease apart contributions to the effect from automatic and strategic processes. The results are considered in relation to current accounts of lexical retrieval.

Prelexical facilitation and lexical interference in auditory word recognition.

Phonological priming effects were examined in an auditory single-word shadowing task. In 6 experiments, target items were preceded by auditorily or visually presented, phonologically similar, word or nonword primes. Results revealed facilitation in response time when a target was preceded by a word or nonword prime having the same initial phoneme when the prime was auditorily presented but not when it was visually presented. Second, modality-independent interference was observed when the phonological overlap between the prime and target increased from 1 to 3 phonemes for word primes but not for nonword primes. Taken together, these studies suggest that phonological information facilitates word recognition as a result of excitation at a prelexical level and increases response time as a result of competition at a lexical level. These processes are best characterized by connectionist models of word recognition.