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Recognition of isolated words: The dynamics of cohort reduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Sarah C. Wayland*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Brandeis University
Arthur Wingfield
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Brandeis University and Aphasia Research Center, Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine
Harold Goodglass
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Brandeis University and Aphasia Research Center, Department of Neurology, Boston University School of Medicine
*
Sarah Wayland, Department of Psychology, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 02254

Abstract

In the experiment reported here, subjects heard the beginnings of spoken words, followed by increasingly larger segments of word-onset information until the words could be correctly identified. The likelihood of word identification at any given point was found to be an inverse power function of the number of words in a dictionary count that began with the same sounds as the stimulus. Subjects' prerecognition responses consisted of words drawn from a wide range of word frequencies. The variance in frequency decreased with increasing amounts of word-onset information. Results are discussed in terms of word-initial phonology as a trigger for response activation.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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