Phonologial priming

Papers we will definitely read

Balota et al. 1986 :BR Depth of Automatic Spreading Activation: Mediated Priming Effects in Pronunciation but not in Lexical Decision BR Dunabeita 2007: BR Are coffee and toffee served in a cup? Ortho-phonologically mediated associative priming BR

Papers I need help reading

Baayen 2006: BR Morphological influences on the recognition of monosyllabic monomorphemic words BR Goldrick & Rapp 2006: BR Lexical and post-lexical phonological representations in spoken production BR Schnur, Costa & Caramazza 2006: BR Planning at the Phonological Level during Sentence Production BR

Notes on readings

1. Goldrick & Rapp (2006) [notes by Florian]

The paper addresses the question whether so called post-lexical and lexical processes can be distinguished, and hence whether theories should account for two distinct stages in processing. Put simply, lexical information refers to idiosyncratic information about the phonology of a word, while post-lexical processes are thought to provide all/more of the regular/predictable aspects of a word's phonology. More specifically, the authors asked what type of information is available at what point in processing (p221: "How late in the process of speaking words are lexical factors represented? How early are phonological features represented?"). Using data from two brain damaged individuals, who seem to have selective doubly-dissociated impairments, the authors conclude that lexical and post-lexical processes are distinct.

Potential problems/points of discussion:

• Two individuals and two stages ... hmm. while this provides evidence for distinct stages, it does not provide strong evidence for two distinct stages (b/c it could not have provided evidence for more than two!). in particular, would there we an individuals with partial impairments for both lexical and post-lexical processes, calling into question the idea of distinct stages?

Interesting facts summarized in this paper (nice overview figure, p230):

• word frequency effects seem to be associated with word level, maybe also with lexical phonological representation. some researchers assume that word frequency effect extend down to post-lexical processes. frequency effects do not seem to be associated with conceptual representation or articulatory processes.

• neighborhood density effects are clearly associated with lexical phonological processes, but possibly also with post-lexical processes (though the evidence is more scarce). there's evidence that these effects must occur prior to articulatory processes.

• phonological representations: theories differ greatly in terms of how detailed/specified a representation they assume at the lexical level. Some theories assume fully specified syllabic representations from the start, while others assume lexical representations to be underspecified featural bundles that get more fully specified via post-lexical processes.

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