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Related Experiment Videos

The effect of subphonetic differences on lexical access

J E Andruski1, S E Blumstein, M Burton

  • 1Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912.

Cognition
|September 1, 1994
PubMed
Summary

Acoustic variations in speech sounds impact how quickly we access words, especially at shorter presentation times. Subtle phonetic differences in spoken words can influence semantic priming effects in language processing.

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Area of Science:

  • Psycholinguistics
  • Phonetics
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Lexical access involves retrieving word meaning from memory.
  • Phonetic features, like voice onset time (VOT), are crucial for distinguishing speech sounds.
  • Semantic priming demonstrates that processing a word speeds up the processing of a related word.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate how acoustic variations in phonetic features affect lexical access.
  • To determine if the magnitude of semantic priming is influenced by systematic manipulations of voice onset time (VOT).

Main Methods:

  • Two experiments used a lexical decision task with semantically related prime-target word pairs.
  • The voice onset time (VOT) of the initial consonant in prime words was systematically manipulated.

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  • Interstimulus intervals (ISIs) of 250 ms and 50 ms were employed.

    • Main Results:

    • No significant effect of VOT manipulation on semantic priming was observed at the 250 ms ISI.
    • At the shorter 50 ms ISI, semantic facilitation decreased as VOT manipulation increased.
    • A trend towards slower lexical decision latencies was noted when prime words had voiced counterparts.

    Conclusions:

    • Lexical activation levels are graded and depend on the phonetic detail of the input.
    • Phonologically similar words are activated to varying degrees based on phonetic input quality.
    • Acoustic variations in speech can modulate the efficiency of semantic priming and lexical access.