In this article the author proposes an episodic theory of spoken word representation, perception, and production. By most theories, idiosyncratic aspects of speech (voice details, ambient noise, etc.) are considered noise and are filtered in perception. However, episodic theories suggest that perceptual details are stored in memory and are integral to later perception. In this research the author tested an episodic model (MINERVA 2; D. L. Hintzman, 1986) against speech production data from a word-shadowing task. The model predicted the shadowing-response-time patterns, and it correctly predicted a tendency for shadowers to spontaneously imitate the acoustic patterns of words and nonwords. It also correctly predicted imitation strength as a function of "abstract" stimulus properties, such as word frequency. Taken together, the data and theory suggest that detailed episodes constitute the basic substrate of the mental lexicon.

Most theories of spoken word identification assume that variable speech signals are matched to canonical representations in memory. To achieve this, idiosyncratic voice details are first normalized, allowing direct comparison of the input to the lexicon. This investigation assessed both explicit and implicit memory for spoken words as a function of speakers' voices, delays between study and test, and levels of processing. In 2 experiments, voice attributes of spoken words were clearly retained in memory. Moreover, listeners were sensitive to fine-grained similarity between 1st and 2nd presentations of different-voice words, but only when words were initially encoded at relatively shallow levels of processing. The results suggest that episodic memory traces of spoken words retain the surface details typically considered as noise in perceptual systems.

Recognition memory for spoken words was investigated with a continuous recognition memory task. Independent variables were number of intervening words (lag) between initial and subsequent presentations of a word, total number of talkers in the stimulus set, and whether words were repeated in the same voice or a different voice. In Experiment 1, recognition judgments were based on word identity alone. Same-voice repetitions were recognized more quickly and accurately than different-voice repetitions at all values of lag and at all levels of talker variability. In Experiment 2, recognition judgments were based on both word identity and voice identity. Subjects recognized repeated voices quite accurately. Gender of the talker affected voice recognition but not item recognition. These results suggest that detailed information about a talker's voice is retained in long-term episodic memory representations of spoken words.

Two experiments employing an auditory priming paradigm were conducted to test predictions of the Neighborhood Activation Model of spoken word recognition (Luce & Pisoni, 1989, . Manuscript under review). Acoustic-phonetic similarity, neighborhood densities, and frequencies of prime and target words were manipulated. In Experiment 1, priming with low frequency, phonetically related spoken words inhibited target recognition, as predicted by the Neighborhood Activation Model. In Experiment 2, the same prime-target pairs were presented with a longer inter-stimulus interval and the effects of priming were eliminated. In both experiments, predictions derived from the Neighborhood Activation Model regarding the effects of neighborhood density and word frequency were supported. The results are discussed in terms of competing activation of lexical neighbors and the dissociation of activation and frequency in spoken word recognition.

Perception is described within a complex systems framework that includes several constructs: resonance, attractors, subsymbols, and design principles. This framework was anticipated in]. 3. Gibson's ecological approach (M. T. Turvey & C. Carello, 1981), but it is extended to cognitive phenomena by assuming experiential realism instead of ecological realism. The framework is applied in this article to explain phonologic mediation in reading and a complex array of published naming and lexical decision data. The full account requires only two design principles: covariant learning and self-consistency. Nonetheless, it organizes and explains a vast empirical literature on printed word perception.