Chapter 8 (Spoken word recognition)
8.1 Introduction
Pre-lexical analysis = operations that are carried out on the speech input in order to organize
it into useful units
Contact = establishing links between the input and the stored forms of words
Activation = getting contacted word excited about the fact that they have been contacted
Access = getting hold of the information about a word that is stored in the mental lexicon
Recognition = knowing which word it is that we have hear
8.2 What are words?
8.3 Pre-lexical analysis
Involves automatic peripheral perceptual processes which analyze the spoken input into
linguistically relevant units
Phonemens = smallest unit that when changed can result in a change in meaning by signaling
a different word
Slips of the ear = misperceptions of speech
Word-by-word analysis of the input implies that a word will not be recognized until its entire
speech pattern has been identified
Phonetic feature = distinctive properties o speech sounds
Gating experiment = truncated propositions of a recorded word are played to participant for
identification. Longer and longer fragments are presented, with an identification response at
each gate
Metrical segmentation strategy = searches are started each time a strong of stressed syllable
is encountered
Vowel harmony = type of agreement between vowels in the relevant syllables
Possible word constraint = speech input is exhaustively segmented into words without leaving
any residual sounds
8.4 Contact and activation
Mapping from the output of pre-lexical analysis onto forms stored in the mental lexicon is a
bottom-up processing
Others also claim a role or top-down
More than one stored word is a characteristic of parallel models of lexical processing
Word-initial cohort = sound of words carry primary responsibility for making contact with
words in the mental lexicon since we hear these parts of the word first
Cohort model = testable predictions about key aspects of the word recognition process, once
the initial sounds of a word have been heard, all words in the mental lexicon that have the
same initial sequence of sounds will be contacted
8.5 Selection
Deviation point = point in the nonsense word where it diverges from known words
, 8.6 Lexical access
Point at where lexically stored information becomes available
8.7 Recognition and context effect
Words are activated on the basis of bottom-up information
8.8 Frequency, competition and neighbourhoods
Frequency effects = words that we encounter more often have an advantage over words that
we do not see or hear so often, reflected in faster response times and greater accuracy or
common words in tasks
Contingency of choice = knowing you have heard a word that depends not just the sound of
it, but also on knowing than you have not heard a word like it
Neighbourhood = a word share similar properties
Word-initial cohort is a type of neighbourhood
Neighbourhood density = have an influence on both word recognition and word production
8.9 Recognizing morphologically complex forms
Inflectional morphology = adding affixes to mark grammatical information
Derivational morphology = adding affixes to make a different kind of word
8.1 Introduction
Pre-lexical analysis = operations that are carried out on the speech input in order to organize
it into useful units
Contact = establishing links between the input and the stored forms of words
Activation = getting contacted word excited about the fact that they have been contacted
Access = getting hold of the information about a word that is stored in the mental lexicon
Recognition = knowing which word it is that we have hear
8.2 What are words?
8.3 Pre-lexical analysis
Involves automatic peripheral perceptual processes which analyze the spoken input into
linguistically relevant units
Phonemens = smallest unit that when changed can result in a change in meaning by signaling
a different word
Slips of the ear = misperceptions of speech
Word-by-word analysis of the input implies that a word will not be recognized until its entire
speech pattern has been identified
Phonetic feature = distinctive properties o speech sounds
Gating experiment = truncated propositions of a recorded word are played to participant for
identification. Longer and longer fragments are presented, with an identification response at
each gate
Metrical segmentation strategy = searches are started each time a strong of stressed syllable
is encountered
Vowel harmony = type of agreement between vowels in the relevant syllables
Possible word constraint = speech input is exhaustively segmented into words without leaving
any residual sounds
8.4 Contact and activation
Mapping from the output of pre-lexical analysis onto forms stored in the mental lexicon is a
bottom-up processing
Others also claim a role or top-down
More than one stored word is a characteristic of parallel models of lexical processing
Word-initial cohort = sound of words carry primary responsibility for making contact with
words in the mental lexicon since we hear these parts of the word first
Cohort model = testable predictions about key aspects of the word recognition process, once
the initial sounds of a word have been heard, all words in the mental lexicon that have the
same initial sequence of sounds will be contacted
8.5 Selection
Deviation point = point in the nonsense word where it diverges from known words
, 8.6 Lexical access
Point at where lexically stored information becomes available
8.7 Recognition and context effect
Words are activated on the basis of bottom-up information
8.8 Frequency, competition and neighbourhoods
Frequency effects = words that we encounter more often have an advantage over words that
we do not see or hear so often, reflected in faster response times and greater accuracy or
common words in tasks
Contingency of choice = knowing you have heard a word that depends not just the sound of
it, but also on knowing than you have not heard a word like it
Neighbourhood = a word share similar properties
Word-initial cohort is a type of neighbourhood
Neighbourhood density = have an influence on both word recognition and word production
8.9 Recognizing morphologically complex forms
Inflectional morphology = adding affixes to mark grammatical information
Derivational morphology = adding affixes to make a different kind of word
