Abstract
Phonological lexical access has been investigated by examining both a pseudohomophone (e.g.,brane) base-word frequency effect and a pseudohomophone advantage over pronounceable nonwords (e.g.,frane) in a single mixed block of naming trials. With a new set of pseudohomophones and nonwords presented in a mixed block, we replicated the standard finding in the naming literature: no reliable base-word frequency effect, and a pseudohomophone advantage. However, for this and two of three other sets of stimuli—those of McCann and Besner (1987), Seidenberg, Petersen, MacDonald, and Plaut (1996), and Herdman, LeFevre, and Greenham (1996), respectively—reliable effects of base-word frequency on pseudohomophone naming latency were found when pseudohomophones were presented in pure blocks prior to nonwords. Three of the four stimulus sets tested produced a pseudohomophone naming disadvantage when pseudohomophones were presented prior to nonwords. When nonwords were presented first, these effects were diminished. A strategy-based scaling account of the data is argued to provide a better explanation of the data than is the criterion-homogenization theory (Lupker, Brown, & Colombo, 1997).
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R.B. and W. J.O. contributed equally to this manuscript. This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada in the form of grants to R.B. and M.E.J.M. and a postgraduate scholarship to W. J.O.
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Borowsky, R., Owen, W.J. & Masson, M.E.J. Diagnostics of phonological lexical processing: Pseudohomophone naming advantages, disadvantages, and base-word frequency effects. Memory & Cognition 30, 969–987 (2002). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195781
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195781