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

Abstract

In a form priming experiment with a lexical decision task, we investigated whether the representational structure of lexical tone in lexical memory impacts spoken word recognition in Mandarin. Target monosyllabic words were preceded by five types of primes: 1) the same real words (/lun4/-/lun4/), 2) real words with only tone contrasts (/lun2/-/lun4/), 3) unrelated real words (/pie3/-/lun4/), 4) pseudowords with only tone contrasts (*/lun3/-/lun4/), and 5) unrelated pseudowords (*/tai3/-/lun4/). We found a facilitation effect in target words with pseudoword primes that share the segmental syllable but contrast in tones (*/lun3/-/lun4/). Moreover, no evident form priming effect was observed in target words primed by real words with only tone contrasts (/lun2/-/lun4/). These results suggest that the recognition of a tone word is influenced by the representational level of tone accessed by the prime word. The distinctive priming patterns between real-word and pseudoword primes are best explained by the connectionist models of tone word recognition, which assume a hierarchical representation of lexical tone.