Facilitation and Inhibition Using a Segmental Phonetic Priming Paradigm

This research explores the representation and access of lexical form during spoken word recognition. Two experiments were conducted examining segmental priming effects. In the first set of experiments, a single fricative segment functioned as a prime to targets with either a matching or mismatching fricative in initial (Experiment 1a) or final (Experiment 1b) position. In the second set of experiments, a CV or VC combination functioned as a prime to targets either matching or mismatching this consonant vowel combination in onset (Experiment 2a) or offset (Experiment 2b) position. Results show a significant matching (match versus mismatch) by position (onset versus offset) interaction. For fricative primes, facilitatory priming is evident in onset position and inhibition in offset position. For consonant-vowel primes, an opposite pattern is evident with inhibitory priming in onset position and facilitation in offset position. The results will be discussed in terms of recent models of auditory word recognition.