Exploring phonological encoding through repeated segments

Abstract

Five experiments explored the influence of repeated phonemes on the production of short utterances. In Experiment 1 coloured object naming showed faster latencies when colour and object started with the same phoneme (‘green goat’) than when they did not; the opposite was found when colour and object were named on consecutive trials (‘green’ – ‘goat’). Experiments 2 and 3 focused on adjective-noun phrases and showed no effect of repeated phonemes on either acoustical duration of speeded responses, or latencies in a delayed variant of the task, suggesting a higher-level – rather than articulatory – locus of the effect. Experiments 4 and 5 demonstrated that the facilitation induced by repeated segments is not specific to word onset (‘green chain’) and is independent of whether or not the repeated phonemes occupy the same within-word position (‘green flag’). These results indicate that in the production of multiple words, word forms are concurrently activated and evoke phonological segments represented in a position-nonspecific manner.

Keywords:

• Phonological encoding
• Repetition priming
• Spoken production

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by grant BB/C508477/1 from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to the first author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nicolas Dumay

Nicolas Dumay is now at the University of Kent at Canterbury