Phonological competition in Mandarin spoken word recognition

Most of the world’s languages use both segment and lexical tone to distinguish word meanings. However, few studies on spoken recognition in show conflicting results concerning relative contribution (sub-)syllabic constituents, time course how segmental tonal information is utilised. In Experiments 1 & 2, participants listened monosyllabic Mandarin words with presence a phonological competitor, which overlaps either syllable, onset tone, rhyme or just tone. Eye movement only confirmed syllable competition effect. Experiment 3 investigated vs. cue utilisation by manipulating their point divergence (POD) found that POD modulates look trajectories competitors. While listeners can incrementally constrain activation, plays an advantageous role recognition.