Abstract
In the research reported here, we investigated the influence of phonological neighborhood density on the processing of words in the visual lexical decision task. The results of the first experiment revealed that words with large phonological neighborhoods were verified more rapidly than words with small phonological neighborhoods. In the second experiment, we replicated this effect with a more tightly controlled set of stimuli. These results demonstrate the importance of phonological codes when processing visually presented letter strings. We relate this research to previous results on semantic and orthographic neighborhoods and discuss the results within the context of a model in which lexical decisions are based on stimulus familiarity.
Article PDF
References
Andrews, S. (1989). Frequency and neighborhood effects on lexical access: Activation or search?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,15, 802–814.
Andrews, S. (1992). Frequency and neighborhood effects on lexical access: Lexical similarity or orthographic redundancy?Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,18, 234–254.
Andrews, S. (1997). The effect of orthographic similarity on lexical retrieval: Resolving neighborhood conflicts.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,4, 439–461.
Baayen, R. H., Piepenbrock, R., &Gulikers, L. (1995).The CELEX lexical database [CD-ROM]. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, Linguistic Data Consortium.
Balota, D. A., Cortese, M. J., Hutchison, K. A., Neely, J. H., Nelson, D., Simpson, G. B., & Treiman, R. (2002).The English lexicon project: A Web-based repository of descriptive and behavioral measures for 40,481 English words and nonwords. Available at http://elexicon. wustl.edu.
Buchanan, L., & Westbury, C. (2000).Wordmine database: Probabilistic values for all four to seven letter words in the English language. Available at http://www.wordmine.org.
Buchanan, L., Westbury, C., &Burgess, C. (2001). Characterizing semantic space: Neighborhood effects in word recognition.Psychonomic Bulletin & Review,8, 531–544.
Coltheart, M., Davelaar, E., Jonasson, J. T., &Besner, D. (1977). Access to the internal lexicon. In S. Dornic (Ed.),Attention and performance VI (pp. 535–555). New York: Academic Press.
Coltheart, M., Rastle, K., Perry, C., Langdon, R., &Ziegler, J. (2001). DRC: A dual route cascaded model of visual word recognition and reading aloud.Psychological Review,108, 204–256.
De Cara, B., &Goswami, U. (2002). Similarity relations among spoken words: The special status of rimes in English.Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers,34, 416–423.
Grainger, J., &Jacobs, A. M. (1996). Orthographic processing in visual word recognition: A multiple read-out model.Psychological Review,103, 518–565.
Jared, D., McRae, K., &Seidenberg, M. S. (1990). The basis of consistency effects in word naming.Journal of Memory & Language,29, 687–715.
Kučera, H., &Francis, N. (1967).Computational analysis of presentday American English. Providence, RI: Brown University Press.
Locker, L., Simpson, G. B., &Yates, M. (2003). Semantic neighborhood effects on the recognition of ambiguous words.Memory & Cognition,31, 505–515.
Luce, P. A., &Pisoni, D. B. (1998). Recognizing spoken words: The neighborhood activation model.Ear & Hearing,19, 1–36.
Nelson, D. L., Schreiber, T. A., &McEvoy, C. L. (1992). Processing implicit and explicit representations.Psychological Review,99, 322–348.
Nusbaum, H. C., Pisoni, D. B., &Davis, C. K. (1984).Sizing up the Hoosier mental lexicon: Measuring the familiarity of 20,000 words (Research on Speech Perception Progress Report No. 10). Bloomington: Indiana University, Psychology Department, Speech Research Laboratory.
Pexman, P. M., Lupker, S. J., &Jared, D. (2001). Homophone effects in lexical decision.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition,27, 139–156.
Plaut, D. C. (1997). Structure and function in the lexical system: Insights from distributed models of word reading and lexical decision.Language & Cognitive Processes,12, 765–805.
Schneider, W. (1988). Micro Experimental Laboratory: An integrated system for IBM PC compatibles.Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers,20, 206–217.
Sears, C. R., Hino, Y., &Lupker, S. J. (1995). Neighborhood size and neighborhood frequency effects in word recognition.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,21, 876–900.
Van Orden, G. C. (1987). A ROWS is a ROSE: Spelling, sound, and reading.Memory & Cognition,15, 181–198.
Van Orden, G. C., &Goldinger, S. D. (1994). Interdependence of form and function in cognitive systems explains perception of printed words.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,20, 1269–1291.
Yates, M., Locker, L., &Simpson, G. B. (2003). Semantic and phonological influences on the processing of words and pseudohomophones.Memory & Cognition,31, 856–866.
Ziegler, J. C., Montant, M., &Jacobs, A. M. (1997). The feedback consistency effect in lexical decision and naming.Journal of Memory & Language,37, 533–554.
Ziegler, J. C., Muneaux, M., &Grainger, J. (2003). Neighborhood effects in auditory word recognition: Phonological competition and orthographic facilitation.Journal of Memory & Language,48, 779–793.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Yates, M., Locker, L. & Simpson, G.B. The influence of phonological neighborhood on visual word perception. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 11, 452–457 (2004). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196594
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03196594