The phonological priming paradigm, in which participants respond to the second of 2 consecutively presented spoken words, has the potential to be a useful tool with which to study lexical processing. Concerns about response biases distorting the results have persisted since its introduction. This study explored the manifestation of biases by modifying the standard priming experiment such that the magnitude of priming effects using the same items could be compared at different points during the testing session. Four experiments investigated whether a recent dissociation of response biases and priming effects is evidence of lexical inhibition when the prime and target overlap by the first 3 word-initial phonemes (M. Hamburger & L. M. Slowiaczek, 1996). Biases were found in conditions previously thought to prevent their influence.

The verbal transformation effect (VTE) is a perceptual phenomenon in which listeners report hearing illusory utterances when a spoken word is rapidly repeated for an extended period of time. The cause of the illusion was investigated by identifying regularities across the transformations that listeners reported and then testing hypotheses about the cause of those regularities. Variants of the standard transformation paradigm were used across 3 experiments to demonstrate that perceptual regrouping of the elements in the repeating utterance is 1 cause of the VTE. Findings also suggest that regrouping is influenced by whether the stimulus is perceived as speech or as nonspeech.Within the information-processing approach to perception, one method of inquiry is to investigate the causes of illusions, which are viewed as windows into the processes that operate during veridical perception. That is, illusions are temporary lesions (Warren, 1968) of the perceptual system that reveal its inner workings.

No abstract

Comparisons of responses to words and pseudowords gure prominently in our efforts to understand how spoken words are recognised. This was apparent in many of the presentations at the SWAP meeting (e.g., Fowler & Brancazio, 2000;Frauenfelder & Content, 2000). Differences in responding to words and pseudowords are assumed to demonstrate the in uence of lexical memory in the task at hand, from which we infer the structural and functional characteristics of the processing system.Each task we use in this enterprise is often best suited to address a subset of theoretical issues. For example, phoneme detection and identi cation are used most often to examine issues about prelexical processing, such as whether there is lexical feedback and what the structure of phonetic categories is. Lexical decision and other word-based tasks tend to be used to explore the properties of lexical memory. So when a lexical effect is identi ed in an unfamiliar task, it is important to determine what we can learn about word processing from it. This has been the goal of our work into the origin of word-pseudoword differences in the Verbal Transformation Effect (VTE). THE LEXICAL EFFECTThe VTE is an auditory illusion in which listeners report hearing illusory utterances after listening to a word repeat over and over at a rapid rate. Listeners respond on the y, repeating illusory percepts into a microphone.Requests for reprints should be addressed to Mark Pitt,

Facilitatory (speeded) and inhibitory (slowed) response times are found in phonological priming experiments, in which the amount of word-initial phoneme overlap between a prime and target is varied (e.g., mark–must). While facilitation appears to be strategic, there is debate as to the nature of the inhibitory priming found when high-overlap prime-target pairs are used (e.g., musk–must). Some researchers propose that this inhibitory priming is due to lexical competition between simultaneously activated candidates; others suggest it is due to the use of a response strategy. Experiments in our laboratory attempted to resolve this debate. We tested for the presence of strategic effects by manipulating variables thought to influence strategy acquisition (i.e., isi, proportion of overlap trials), and then by examining participants’ RTs to trials of varying overlap (e.g., prone–must, mark–must, muff–must, musk–must) collected over the course of the experiment. Results suggest that inhibition in the phonological priming paradigm is determined in large part by the development of a response strategy.