Phonological similarity effects in Cantonese spoken-word processing

Representational level matters for tone-word recognition: Evidence from form priming

“…These findings suggest that in a priming context, where listeners are asked to focus on target words, the processing priority of a segmental syllable during the perception of prime words may become more prominent, leading to a relatively stronger sublexical priming effect. Some common ground can be found between this explanation and the interpretation of the facilitatory priming effects in two early Cantonese studies (Yip, 2001; Yip et al, 1998), in which the facilitation effects were considered to suggest that native Cantonese speakers are more sensitive to identical segments than to mismatched tone.…”

“…This finding appears to echo those of earlier priming studies in Cantonese with shadowing tasks. In Yip et al (1998), Cantonese participants were asked to orally repeat the second word in a word pair which carried either onset, rhyme, or tone mismatch and reported facilitation effects only when there was a mismatch in tones (see Yip, 2001 for a replication). In those studies, the facilitation effects were considered to indicate a higher sensitivity to segmental information than to tonal information in native Cantonese speakers.…”

“…Then, continuous input of tonal information is used to deactivate incompatible candidates, leaving only one candidate to represent the word to be recognised. To examine this assumed role of tone during spoken word recognition, form priming experiments have been conducted, mostly limited to Mandarin (e.g., Lee C.-Y., 2007;Sereno & Lee H., 2015) and Cantonese (Yip, 2001;Yip et al, 1998). Form priming refers to the priming effects that a word produces on the processing of a subsequently presented word related to the phonological overlap between the two words during the recognition stage (see Zwitserlood, 1996, for a review).…”

Investigation of Mandarin Word Production in Children and Adults: Evidence from Phonological Priming with Non-words

“…Previous studies have suggested that a higher PRP material set might cause strategic processing (Goldinger et al, 1992; Hamburger & Slowiaczek, 1996; Yip, 2001). In a cue-shadowing task, Yip et al (1998) only observed syllable priming effects (i.e., primes and targets shared the same onset and rhyme); based on this result, Yip (2001) used the same experimental design but reduced the PRP from 75% to 50%, which led to both syllable and rhyme-and-tone priming effects for Cantonese speakers. Though the high PRP in our material set may have caused strategic effects, there were several differences between our study and Yip et al’s (1998), Yip’s (2001).…”

“…In a cue-shadowing task, Yip et al (1998) only observed syllable priming effects (i.e., primes and targets shared the same onset and rhyme); based on this result, Yip (2001) used the same experimental design but reduced the PRP from 75% to 50%, which led to both syllable and rhyme-and-tone priming effects for Cantonese speakers. Though the high PRP in our material set may have caused strategic effects, there were several differences between our study and Yip et al’s (1998), Yip’s (2001). First, in Yip’s studies, a phonological priming effect at the sub-syllabic level was only revealed when the low PRP set was adopted; however, the current study successfully induced a phonological priming effect at the sub-syllabic level with a wide range of phonological-related primes even with a high PRP set.…”