We propose that speech comprehension involves the activation of token representations of the phonological forms of current lexical hypotheses, separately from the ongoing construction of a conceptual interpretation of the current utterance. In a series of cross-modal priming experiments, facilitation of lexical decision responses to visual target…

Positron emission tomography was used to investigate two competing hypotheses about the role of the left inferior frontal gyrus (IFG) in word generation. One proposes a domain-specific organization, with neural activation dependent on the type of information being processed, i.e., surface sound structure or semantic. The other proposes a…

Introduces this issue of the journal, summarizing current issues in spoken word recognition. Argues a full understanding of the process of lexical access during speech comprehension will depend on resolving several issues: what is the form of the representations used for lexical access; how is phonological information coded in the mental lexicon;…

Tested whether listeners' reaction times for monitoring a predetermined phoneme are influenced by phonetic constraints on ordering. Reaction times were significantly shorter for phoneme monitoring in monosyllable-bisyllable sequences than in bisyllable-monosyllable sequences; however, reaction times were not significantly different for high-low vs…

Studies analyzing children's response time to detect word targets revealed that six-year-olds and younger children generally did not show the response time advantage for accented target words which adult listeners show, providing support for the argument that the processing advantage for accented words reflects the semantic role of accent as an…