title: Online lexical competition during spoken word recognition and word learning in children and adults.
abstract: Lexical competition that occurs as speech unfolds is a hallmark of adult oral language comprehension crucial to rapid incremental speech processing. This study used pause detection to examine whether lexical competition operates similarly at 7-8 years and tested variables that influence "online" lexical activity in adults. Children (n = 20) and adults (n = 17) were slower to detect pauses in familiar words with later uniqueness points. Faster latencies were obtained for words with late uniqueness points in constraining compared with neutral sentences; no such effect was observed for early unique words. Following exposure to novel competitors ("biscal"), children (n = 18) and adults (n = 18) showed competition for existing words with early uniqueness points ("biscuit") after 24 hr. Thus, online lexical competition effects are remarkably similar across development.
authors: University of York.
authors: Lisa
authors: L
authors: Henderson
authors: Anna
authors: A
authors: Weighall
authors: Helen
authors: H
authors: Brown
authors: Gareth
authors: G
authors: Gaskell
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002648:Child; D032882:Comprehension / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology; D014706:Verbal Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D014825:Vocabulary; D055815:Young Adult