Phonographic neighbors, not orthographic neighbors, determine word naming latencies

The orthographic neighborhood size (N) of a word--the number of words that can be formed from that word by replacing one letter with another in its place--has been found to have facilitatory effects in word naming. The orthographic neighborhood hypothesis attributes this facilitation to interactive effects. A phonographic neighborhood hypothesis, in contrast, attributes the effect to lexical print-sound conversion. According to the phonographic neighborhood hypothesis, phonographic neighbors (words differing in one letter and one phoneme, e.g., stove and stone) should facilitate naming, and other orthographic neighbors (e.g., stove and shove) should not. The predictions of these two hypotheses are tested. Unique facilitatory phonographic N effects were found in four sets of word naming mega-study data, along with an absence of facilitatory orthographic N effects. These results implicate print-sound conversion--based on consistent phonology--in neighborhood effects rather than word-letter feedback.