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Abstract:
Research over the past two decades has shown that some
information about written words (e.g., lexical) can be accessed
pre-attentively. On the other hand, there is little agreement on
whether phonological information can be retrieved in the absence of
overt identification of a word. In this study we have addressed
this question by manipulating the phonological relationship between
pairs of English words in two masked lexical decision tasks.
Targets (uppercase) were preceded by primes (lowercase) that were
either homophones (bare-BEAR) or orthographic controls (barn-BARE).
In separate studies primes were presented for 33 or 66 msec and
were preceded by a mask that prevented their identification. No
evidence of phonological priming, measured as the difference in
reaction times between homophones and their orthographic controls,
was found in either study. On the other hand, preliminary data from
the unmasked condition, where both words were presented for 500
msec, showedthat phonological priming did occur when both words
were fully readable.Therefore, the present results do not support
the hypothesis that phonological information in English is computed
pre-attentively, as has been reported in other languages (e.g.,
Serbo-Croatian). Phonological priming might depend on the degree of
transparency between orthography and phonology in particular
languages (Berent, Perfetti). Results from ongoing ERP studies will
assess the hypothesis that rapid, transient, pre- attentive,
phonological priming effects may exist.
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