Do transposed-letter similarity effects occur at a prelexical phonological level?
Nonwords created by transposing two letters (e.g., RELOVUTION) are very effective at activating the lexical representation of their base words (Perea & Lupker, 2004). In the present study, we examined whether the nature of transposed-letter (TL) similarity effects was purely orthographic or whether it could also have a phonological component. Specifically, we examined transposed-letter similarity effects for nonwords created by transposing two nonadjacent letters (e.g., relovución-REVOLUCION) in a masked form priming experiment using the lexical decision task (Experiment 1). The controls were (a) a pseudohomophone of the transposed-letter prime (relobución-REVOLUCION; note that B and V are pronounced as /b/ in Spanish) or (b) an orthographic control (relodución-REVOLUCION). Results showed a similar advantage of the TL nonword condition over the phonological and the orthographic control conditions. Experiment 2 showed a masked phonological priming effect when the letter positions in the prime were in the right order. In a third experiment, using a single-presentation lexical decision task, TL nonwords produced longer latencies than the orthographic and phonological controls, whereas there was only a small phonological effect restricted to the error data. These results suggest that TL similarity effects are orthographic--rather than phonological--in nature.
Perea
Manuel
M
Universitat de València, València, Spain. mperea@uv.es
Carreiras
Manuel
M
D001244:Association; D003463:Cues; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010470:Perceptual Masking / Q000502:physiology; D010700:Phonetics; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D011932:Reading; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D014825:Vocabulary