What determines the speed of lexical access: homophone or specific-word frequency? A reply to Jescheniak et al. (2003).
A. Caramazza, A. Costa, M. Miozzo, and Y. Bi (2001) reported a series of experiments showing that naming latencies for homophones are determined by specific-word frequency (e.g., frequency of nun) and not homophone frequency (frequency of nun + none). J. D. Jescheniak, A. S. Meyer, and W. J. M. Levelt (2003) have challenged these studies on a variety of grounds. Here we argue that these criticisms are not well founded and try to clarify the theoretical issues that can be meaningfully addressed by considering the effects of frequency on homophone production. We conclude that the evidence from homophone production cannot be considered to provide support to 2-layer theories of the lexical system.
Caramazza
Alfonso
A
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. caram@wjh.harvard.edu
Bi
Yanchao
Y
Costa
Albert
A
Miozzo
Michelle
M
D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D010507:Periodicity; D010700:Phonetics; D011930:Reaction Time; D014825:Vocabulary