Cover not available
Article published In:
The Mental Lexicon
Vol. 12:3 (2017) ► pp.404–430

The asymmetric contribution of consonants and vowels to phonological similarity

Evidence from lexical priming

| Department of Linguistics, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa
| Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et Psycholinguistique, Département d’Etudes Cognitives, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, PSL University

Lexical priming is known to arise from phonological similarity between prime and target, and this phenomenon is an important component of our understanding of the processes of lexical access and competition. However, the precise nature of the role of phonological similarity in lexical priming is understudied. In the present study, two experiments were conducted in which participants performed auditory lexical decision on CVC targets which were preceded by primes that either matched the target in all phonemes (CVC condition), in the first two phonemes (CV_ condition), the last two phonemes (_VC condition), the initial and last phonemes (C_C condition) or no phonemes (unrelated condition). Relative to the unrelated condition, all conditions except CV_ led to facilitation of response time to target words. The _VC and C_C conditions led to equivalent facilitation magnitude, while the CV_ condition showed neither facilitation nor inhibition. Accounting for these results requires appeal to processes of lexical competition and also to the notion that phonemes do not lend equivalent phonological similarity; that is, vowels and consonants are processed differently.

Keywords: auditory priming, French, phonological priming, phonological similarity
Article outline
  • Experiment 1
    • Methods
      • Materials
      • Procedure
      • Participants
      • Predictions
      • Analysis
    • Results
    • Discussion
  • Experiment 2
    • Methods
      • Materials
      • Procedure
      • Participants
      • Analysis
    • Results
    • Discussion
  • General discussion
    • Summary of experiments
    • Alternative explanations
      • Orthographic influence
      • Task-specific strategies
      • Phonetic priming
      • Reduced cohort competition between experiments 1 and 2
      • Alternatives to consonant facilitation
  • Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 March 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ml.17010.tur
References
Barr, D. J., Levy, R., Scheepers, C., & Tily, H.
(2013) Random effects structure for confirmatory hypothesis testing: Keep it maximal. Journal of Memory and Language, 681, 255–278. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clopper, C. G., & Walker, A.
(2017) Effects of lexical competition and dialect exposure on phonological priming. Language and Speech, 60(1), 85–109. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cutler, A., Sebastiân-Gallés, N., Soler-Vilageliu, O., & van Ooijen, B.
(2000) Constraints of vowels and consonants on lexical selection: Cross-linguistic comparisons. Memory & Cognition, 28(5), 746–755. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Delle Luche, C., Poltrock, S., Goslin, J., New, B., Floccia, C., & Nazzi, T.
(2014) Differential processing of consonants and vowels in the auditory modality: A cross-linguistic study. Journal of Memory and Language, 721, 1–15. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Desroches, A. S., Newman, R. L., & Joanisse, M. F.
(2008) Investigating the time course of spoken word recognition: Electrophysiological evidence for the influences of phonological similarity. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 21(10), 1893–1906. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dufour, S.
(2008) Phonological priming in auditory word recognition: When both controlled and automatic processes are responsible for the effects. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62(1), 33–41. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dufour, S., Dumon, A., & Nguyen, N.
(2015) Does a change in talker identity help listeners resolve lexical competition? evidence from phonological priming. In Proceedings of the eighteenth international congress of the phonetic sciences.Google Scholar
Dufour, S., & Frauenfelder, U. H.
(2016) Inhibitory phonetic priming: Where does the effect come from? The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69(1), 180–196. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dufour, S., & Nguyen, N.
(2017) Does talker-specific information influence lexical competition? evidence from phonological priming. Cognitive Science, 41(8), 2221–2233. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dufour, S., & Peereman, R.
(2009) Competition effects in phonological priming: The role of mismatch position between primes and targets. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 381, 475–490. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dumay, N., Benraïss, A., Barriol, B., Colin, C., Radeau, M., & Besson, M.
(2001) Behavioral and electrophysiological study of phonological priming between bisyllabic spoken words. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 13(1), 121–143. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gaskell, M. G., & Dumay, N.
(2003) Lexical competition and the acquisition of novel words. Cognition, 891, 105–132. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldinger, S. D.
(1998) Signal detection comparisons of phonemic and phonetic priming: The flexible-bias problem. Perception & Psychophysics, 60(6), 952–965. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Goldinger, S. D., Luce, P. A., Pisoni, D. B., & Marcario, J. K.
(1992) Form-based priming in spoken word recognition: The roles of competition and bias. Journal ofExperimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition.Google Scholar
Gray, S., Reiser, M., & Brinkley, S.
(2012) Effect of onset and rhyme pairs in preschoolers with typical development and specific languages impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 551, 32–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hamburger, M., & Slowiaczek, L. M.
(1996) Phonological priming reflects lexical competition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 3(4), 520–525. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Havy, M., & Nazzi, T.
(2009) Better processing of consonantal over vocalic information in word learning at 16 months of age. Infancy, 14(4), 439–456. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
James, L. E., & Burke, D. M.
(2000) Phonological priming effects on word retrieval and tip-of-the-tongue experiences in young and older adults. Journal ofExperimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 26(6), 1378–1391.Google Scholar
Keuleers, E., & Brysbaert, M.
(2010) Wuggy: A multilingual pseudoword generator. Behavior Research Methods, 42(2), 627–633. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lowenstamm, J., & Kaye, J.
(1986) Compensatory lengthening in Tiberian Hebrew. In W. L. Wetzels & E. Sezer (Eds.), Studies in compensatory lengthening (pp. 97–132). Dordrecht: Foris. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Luce, P. A., Goldinger, S. D., Auer, E. T., & Vitevitch, M. S.
(2000) Phonetic priming, neighborhood activation, and PARSYN. Perception & Psychophysics, 62(3), 615–625. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marslen-Wilson, W.
(1990) Activation, competition, and frequency in lexical access. In G. T. M. Altmann (Ed.), Cognitive models of speech processing (pp. 148–172). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
McQueen, J. M., & Sereno, J.
(2005) Cleaving automatic processes from strategic biases in phonological priming. Memory & Cognition, 33(7), 1185–1209. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nazzi, T., Floccia, C., Moquet, B., & Butler, J.
(2009) Bias for consonantal information over vocalic information in 30-month-olds: Cross-linguistic evidence from french and english. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1021, 522–537. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nespor, M., Pena, M., & Mehler, J.
(2003) On the different roles of vowels and consonants in speech processing and language acquisition. Lingue e linguaggio, 2(2), 203–230.Google Scholar
New, B., Araûjo, V., & Nazzi, T.
(2008) Differential processing of consonants and vowels in lexical access through reading. Psychological Science, 19(12), 1223–1227. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
New, B., Pallier, C., Ferrand, L., & Matos, R.
(2001) Une base de données lexical du français contemporain sur internet: LEXIQUE. L’Année Psychologique, 1011, 447–462. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norris, D., McQueen, J. M., & Cutler, A.
(2002) Bias effects in facilitatory phonological priming. Memory & Cognition, 30(3), 399–411. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Peirce, J. W.
(2009) Generating stimuli for neuroscience using PsychoPy. Frontiers in Neuroinformatics, 21, 10.Google Scholar
Prunet, J. -F.
(1987) Liaison and nasalization in French. In C. J. Neidle & R. Nûnez Cedeno (Eds.), Studies in Romance languages (pp. 225–235). Dordrecht: Foris. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Radeau, M., Besson, M., Fonteneau, E., & Castro, S. L.
(1998) Semantic, repetition and rime priming between spoken words: behavioral and electrophysiological evidence. Biological Psychology, 481, 183–204. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Radeau, M., Morais, J., & Segui, J.
(1995) Phonological priming between monosyllabic spoken words. Journal ofExperimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 21(6), 1297–1311.Google Scholar
Selkirk, E. O.
(1986) Phonology and syntax: the relationship between sound and structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Slowiaczek, L. M., & Hamburger, M.
(1992) Prelexical facilitation and lexical interference in auditory word recognition. Journal ofExperimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18(6), 1239–1250.Google Scholar
Slowiaczek, L. M., McQueen, J. M., Soltano, E. G., & Lynch, M.
(2000) Phonological representations in prelexical speech processing: Evidence from form-based priming. Journal of Memory and Language, 431, 530–560. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Slowiaczek, L. M., Nusbaum, H. C., & Pisoni, D. B.
(1987) Phonological priming in auditory word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 13(1), 64–75.Google Scholar
Slowiaczek, L. M., & Pisoni, D. B.
(1986) Effects of phonological similarity on priming in auditory lexical decision. Memory & Cognition, 141, 230–237. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Turnbull, R.
(2017) The role of predictability in intonational variation. Language and Speech, 60(1), 123–153. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wiener, S., & Turnbull, R.
(2016) Constraints of tones, vowels and consonants on lexical selection in Mandarin Chinese. Language and Speech, 59(1), 59–82. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Berrebi, Si, Outi Bat-El & Aya Meltzer-Asscher
2023. The roots of consonant bias in semitic languages: a critical review of psycholinguistic studies of languages with non-concatenative morphology. Morphology 33:3 ► pp. 225 ff. DOI logo
Nieder, Jessica, Ruben van de Vijver & Holger Mitterer
2021. Knowledge of Maltese singular–plural mappings. Morphology 31:2 ► pp. 147 ff. DOI logo
Sun, Yue & David Poeppel
2023. Syllables and their beginnings have a special role in the mental lexicon. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 120:36 DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 6 june 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.