the sound level structure in farsi speakers’ mental lexicon: a priming study

the spreading activation models of mental lexicon's structure have presented the lexicon in multiple layers (semantic- syntactic- phonological). each layer is a network of nodes which are associated by links. the nature of these links is different from layer to layer. the literature for english speakers has shown that in the phonological layer, phonological forms of words have been linked based on phonological similarities and rhyme. in the present study, we have investigated the nature of the links in phonological layer in the farsi speakers' mental lexicon based on a phonological priming experiment. 30 participants have taken part in the experiment. the result has shown that the phonological layer in farsi speakers' mental lexicon is rhyme-oriented and phonological similarities has a less active role in making the links between the phonological forms of words.