The role of sub-lexical orthography in naming: a performance and acoustic analysis

Two experiments examined whether the duration of naming is sensitive to variables that influence pre-production processes. In Experiment 1 word naming produced longer durations than picture naming. Experiment 2 replicated this effect for low frequency items, but not for high frequency items. The results indicate that naming duration increases when conditions are likely to involve sub-lexical orthographic to phonological translation. The results are inconsistent with the proposition that input and output involve discrete or distinct information processing stages in naming where the whole response is planned in advance of response initiation. Rather, it is claimed that sub-lexical information about a printed word's pronunciation can be used to initiate a naming response before the whole response is fully prepared. The implications for models of word naming and the role of suprasegmental factors in naming are discussed.