Re-reconsidering the role of temporal order in spoken word recognition

Abstract

Spoken word recognition models incorporate the temporal unfolding of word information by assuming that positional match constrains lexical activation. Recent findings challenge the linearity constraint. In the visual world paradigm, Toscano, Anderson, and McMurray observed that listeners preferentially viewed a picture of a target word’s anadrome competitor (e.g., competitor bus for target sub) compared with phonologically unrelated distractors (e.g., well) or competitors sharing an overlapping vowel (e.g., sun). Toscano et al. concluded that spoken word recognition relies on coarse grain spectral similarity for mapping spoken input to a lexical representation. Our experiments aimed to replicate the anadrome effect and to test the coarse grain similarity account using competitors without vowel position overlap (e.g., competitor leaf for target flea). The results confirmed the original effect: anadrome competitor fixation curves diverged from unrelated distractors approximately 275 ms after the onset of the target word. In contrast, the no vowel position overlap competitor did not show an increase in fixations compared with the unrelated distractors. The contrasting results for the anadrome and no vowel position overlap items are discussed in terms of theoretical implications of sequential match versus coarse grain similarity accounts of spoken word recognition. We also discuss design issues (repetition of stimulus materials and display parameters) concerning the use of the visual world paradigm in making inferences about online spoken word recognition.

Phoneme‐Order Encoding During Spoken Word Recognition: A Priming Investigation

“…It is the partial activation of such words that is thought to have driven the eye‐movement patterns in Toscano et al's study and the short‐term priming effects of this study. Our results also confirm the eye‐tracking observations that the transposed‐phoneme effect is due to more than vowel position overlap in the transposed words (Gregg et al, in press; Toscano et al, ). They also confirm that two shared phonemes with one phoneme in a different position cause lesser activation of the target words (Toscano et al, ), and that complete phonemic overlap is a necessary condition in order to obtain transposed‐phoneme effects.…”

“…At the same time, they showed that competitors without vowel position overlap (LEAF‐FLEA) were not fixated more that unrelated words, thus indicating that positional vowel match is critical in the observation of the transposed‐phoneme effect. As discussed by Gregg et al (in press), such a finding could argue for a special status for vowels that would be processed more rapidly than consonants. Within the framework of the TISK model, the findings of Gregg et al suggest that the position‐independence of phoneme identities might be constrained by the abstract CV‐structure of the stimulus being processing.…”

“…However, the results of a recent study (Gregg et al, in press) impose further constraints on how positional information is encoded during spoken word recognition. Using the eye‐tracking paradigm, the authors replicated Toscano et al's () findings that transposed‐phoneme competitors (GUM‐MUG) were fixated more than unrelated words.…”

“…In this study, we provide a further test of a role for position‐independent phonemes in spoken word recognition by using a priming paradigm. This is an important endeavor because, to the best of our knowledge, they are only two studies to date that have examined this important question (Gregg, Inhoff, & Connine, in press; Toscano et al, ), and also because Toscano et al's findings were recently questioned regarding their statistical reliability (Mitterer, Reinisch, & McQueen, ). It is also important because, to our knowledge, there is only one model of spoken word recognition, the TISK model (Hannagan et al, ), that can account for Toscano et al's findings.…”

The influence of word frequency on the transposed-phoneme priming effect

“…This finding suggests that the transposed-phoneme effect is due to more than just vowel position overlap in the transposed words. The main finding of Toscano et al (2013) that CAT and TACK are confusable words was replicated in a following study by Gregg et al (2019) with a larger set of items. At the same time, Gregg et al (2019) showed that competitors without vowel position overlap (e.g., LEAF-FLEA) were not fixated more that unrelated words.…”