When nonwords activate semantics better than words.
We conducted a strong test of the idea that visual word processing and the activation of a printed word's meaning proceeds at a rate scaled by the temporal evolution of a unique and stable phonological code. Using the lexical decision task, and readers fluent in the two alphabets of Serbo-Croatian, we compared the priming of a target word such as automat by the semantically related word ROBOT and by the nonword ROBOT. Whereas the Serbo-Croatian word ROBOT can support two phonological codes, /robot/ and /rovot/, the nonword ROBOT composed by illegally mixing Roman and Cyrillic letters can support only the phonological code /robot/, that corresponding to the word whose meaning is related to automat's. At a prime duration of 35 ms, the lexical decision on the target automat was facilitated by ROBOT but not by ROBOT. At a prime duration of 125 ms, the word ROBOT was the more effective prime. One consequence of phonology's leading role in visual word recognition is that a nonword can sometimes activate a given word's meaning better than the word itself.
Lukatela
G
G
University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA. lukatela@uconnvm.uconn.edu
Carello
C
C
Savić
M
M
Urosević
Z
Z
Turvey
M T
MT
D000293:Adolescent; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D010700:Phonetics; D012660:Semantics; D013060:Speech / Q000502:physiology; D014825:Vocabulary