Lexical Neighborhood Density Effects on Spoken Word Recognition and Production in Healthy Aging

Taler, Vanessa; Aaron, Geoffrey P.; Steinmetz, Lauren G.; Pisoni, David B.

doi:10.1093/geronb/gbq039

Cited by 82 publications

(102 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Most importantly, individual inhibitory abilities were found to be correlated with lexical identification performance on words with many neighbors in a study with young and older adults (and not with performance on the "easy" words with few neighbors), again suggesting that inhibitory abilities play a role in the auditory recognition of words with many similar-sounding neighbors (Sommers & Danielson, 1999). Consistent with these results, Taler, Aaron, Steinmetz, and Pisoni (2010) found that poorer inhibitory function (as indexed by performance on a Stroop paradigm) is associated with a greater difference between performance on high vs. low neighborhood density words at poor signal-to-noise ratios. Note that this relationship between inhibitory function and lexical recognition exists even though the type of inhibition assessed in a Stroop task is under the participant's control to a greater extent than is inhibition in the word recognition system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Identifying Nonwords: Effects of Lexical Neighborhoods, Phonotactic Probability, and Listener Characteristics

Janse

Newman

2012

Lang Speech

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Listeners find it relatively difficult to recognize words that are similar-sounding to other known words. In contrast, when asked to identify spoken nonwords, listeners perform better when the nonwords are similar to many words in their language. These effects of sound similarity have been assessed in multiple ways, and both sublexical (phonotactic probability) and lexical (neighborhood) effects have been reported, leading to models that incorporate multiple stages of processing. One prediction that can be derived from these models is that there may be differences among individuals in the size of these similarity effects as a function of working memory abilities. This study investigates how item-individual characteristics of nonwords (both phonotactic probability and neighborhood density) interact with listener-individual characteristics (such as cognitive abilities and hearing sensitivity) in the perceptual identification of nonwords. A set of nonwords was used in which neighborhood density and phonotactic probability were not correlated. In our data, neighborhood density affected identification more reliably than did phonotactic probability. The first study, with young adults, showed that higher neighborhood density particularly benefits nonword identification for those with poorer attention-switching control. This suggests that it may be easier to focus attention on a novel item if it activates and receives support from more similar-sounding neighbors. A similar study on nonword identification with older adults showed increased neighborhood density effects for those with poorer hearing, suggesting that activation of long-term linguistic knowledge is particularly important to back up auditory representations that are degraded as a result of hearing loss.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Identifying Nonwords: Effects of Lexical Neighborhoods, Phonotactic Probability, and Listener Characteristics

Janse

Newman

2012

Lang Speech

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“…The idea was that the impact of PhND changes with vocabulary growth during development. Further studies reported an inhibitory effect of PhND in English speech production latencies (Luce & Pisoni, 1998;Munson et al, 2005;Taler et al, 2010;Vitevitch & Luce, 1998). In these studies, participants were asked to repeat as fast as possible a word or sentence presented acoustically (i.e., shadowing task).…”

Section: Are There Cross-linguistic Differences In the Direction Of Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The shadowing task involves both speech perception and speech production, and hence may reflect contributions of either process (Bates & Liu, 1996). For example, shadowing experiments are used to investigate the relationship between input and output phonological representations (e.g., Mitterer & Ernestus, 2008;Taler et al, 2010). Therefore, the inhibitory effect may stem in part from production processes, yet attributing the results from shadowing studies to perception versus production processes should be done cautiously.…”

Section: Are There Cross-linguistic Differences In the Direction Of Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconciling phonological neighborhood effects in speech production through single trial analysis

Sadat

Martin

Costa

et al. 2014

Cognitive Psychology

117

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A crucial step for understanding how lexical knowledge is represented is to describe the relative similarity of lexical items, and how it influences language processing. Previous studies of the effects of form similarity on word production have reported conflicting results, notably within and across languages. The aim of the present study was to clarify this empirical issue to provide specific constraints for theoretical models of language production. We investigated the role of phonological neighborhood density in a large-scale picture naming experiment using finegrained statistical models. The results showed that increasing phonological neighborhood density has a detrimental effect on naming latencies, and re-analyses of independently obtained data sets provide supplementary evidence for this effect. Finally, we reviewed a large body of evidence concerning phonological neighborhood density effects in word production, and discussed the occurrence of facilitatory and inhibitory effects in accuracy measures. The overall pattern shows that phonological neighborhood generates two opposite forces, one facilitatory and one inhibitory. In cases where speech production is disrupted (e.g. certain aphasic symptoms), the facilitatory component may emerge, but inhibitory processes dominate in efficient naming by healthy speakers. These findings are difficult to accommodate in terms of monitoring processes, but can be explained within interactive activation accounts combining phonological facilitation and lexical competition. 2Reconciling phonological neighborhood effects in speech production through single trial analysis Native speakers of a language know a myriad of different words. This so-called mental lexicon is often described as an interconnected network in which representation distance may depend on meaning or form similarities among the words. One crucial step for understanding this network is to describe which kind of similarity influences language processing and how it modulates performance. In this context, the current research is concerned with the role of phonological similarity in word retrieval and speech production. This issue has been addressed in earlier theoretical work (e.g. Chen & Mirman, 2012;Dell & Gordon, 2003), but the empirical evidence on which this work is grounded remains controversial. Our goal in this article is to clarify the empirical facts regarding form similarity effects in speech production, and to integrate them within a single account. Clearing the empirical constraints will allow further refinement of theoretical models to advance our understanding of the cognitive processes underlying speech production.An approximation of how similar or interconnected a word is within the lexical network can be obtained by computing its phonological neighborhood density (PhND). PhND refers to the number of words that can be formed from a given word by substituting, adding or deleting one phoneme (Luce, 1986). For example, the word "bat" sounds similar to many other words (e.g., "cat", "fat",...

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“…In addition, the effect of neighborhood density may vary across different levels of noise. Taler, Aaron, Steinmetz, and Pisoni (2010) found that the neighborhood density effect on recognition was larger in a challenging listening condition (−3-dB signal-to-noise ratio [SNR]) than in a favorable listening condition (+10-dB SNR). This result implies that noise may amplify the effect of neighborhood density because adults show greater reliance on top-down processing when the listening condition worsens.…”

Section: Effect Of Noise On Word Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of Phonotactic Probability and Neighborhood Density on Adults' Word Learning in Noisy Conditions

Han

Storkel

Lee

et al. 2016

Am J Speech Lang Pathol

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Purpose: Noisy conditions make auditory processing difficult. This study explores whether noisy conditions influence the effects of phonotactic probability (the likelihood of occurrence of a sound sequence) and neighborhood density (phonological similarity among words) on adults' word learning. Method: Fifty-eight adults learned nonwords varying in phonotactic probability and neighborhood density in either an unfavorable (0-dB signal-to-noise ratio [SNR]) or a favorable (+8-dB SNR) listening condition. Word learning was assessed using a picture naming task by scoring the proportion of phonemes named correctly. Results: The unfavorable 0-dB SNR condition showed a significant interaction between phonotactic probability and neighborhood density in the absence of main effects. In particular, adults learned more words when phonotactic probability and neighborhood density were both low or both high. The +8-dB SNR condition did not show this interaction. These results are inconsistent with those from a prior adult word learning study conducted under quiet listening conditions that showed main effects of word characteristics. Conclusions: As the listening condition worsens, adult word learning benefits from a convergence of phonotactic probability and neighborhood density. Clinical implications are discussed for potential populations who experience difficulty with auditory perception or processing, making them more vulnerable to noise.

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Lexical Neighborhood Density Effects on Spoken Word Recognition and Production in Healthy Aging

Cited by 82 publications

References 32 publications

Identifying Nonwords: Effects of Lexical Neighborhoods, Phonotactic Probability, and Listener Characteristics

Identifying Nonwords: Effects of Lexical Neighborhoods, Phonotactic Probability, and Listener Characteristics

Reconciling phonological neighborhood effects in speech production through single trial analysis

The Effects of Phonotactic Probability and Neighborhood Density on Adults' Word Learning in Noisy Conditions

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