Does Word Identification Proceed From Spelling to Sound to Meaning?

Six experiments addressed the role of phonological information in visual word recognition using a semantic-decision task. Experiment 1 replicated Van Orden's (1987) finding that Ss make more false-positive errors on homophone foils than on spelling controls, indicating phonological activation of meaning. Experiment 2 showed that only lower frequency words yield this effect when broader categories are used. In Experiments 3 and 4, the homophony effect for lower frequency words remained, even though the stimuli included a large proportion of homophones, suggesting that activation of phonological information cannot be strategically inhibited. Experiments 5 and 6 examined effects of homophony on targets that were correct category exemplars and yielded similar results. These studies indicate that in skilled readers, phonological information contributes to the activation of word meaning only for low-frequency words.