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Effects of prosodically modulated sub-phonetic variation on lexical competition.

Salverda AP, Dahan D, Tanenhaus MK, Crosswhite K, Masharov M, McDonough J

Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, University of Rochester, Meliora Hall, Rochester, NY 14627, USA. asalverda@bcs.rochester.edu

Eye movements were monitored as participants followed spoken instructions to manipulate one of four objects pictured on a computer screen. Target words occurred in utterance-medial (e.g., Put the cap next to the square) or utterance-final position (e.g., Now click on the cap). Displays consisted of the target picture (e.g., a cap), a monosyllabic competitor picture (e.g., a cat), a polysyllabic competitor picture (e.g., a captain) and a distractor (e.g., a beaker). The relative proportion of fixations to the two types of competitor pictures changed as a function of the position of the target word in the utterance, demonstrating that lexical competition is modulated by prosodically conditioned phonetic variation.

Published 15 October 2007 in Cognition, 105(2): 466-76.
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