title: The role of lexical expertise in reading homophones.
abstract: In Experiment 1, university students classified on lexical expertise on the basis of spelling plus nonword pronunciation accuracy made lexical decisions to homophones and control words. Homophones were accepted as words more slowly than control words, but lexical experts showed a smaller homophone cost than the less skilled group. In Experiment 2, similarly classified groups showed a large difference in their ability to detect homophones, with the low-expertise group showing a yes bias to high-frequency words, and having difficulty detecting homophones when mate-frequency was low. The results suggest superior use of orthography in the lexical experts and more reliance on semantic information in nonexperts, and support the importance of facility with orthography-phonology mappings in lexical expertise.
authors.affiliation: a School of Psychology , University of Queensland , Brisbane, QLD , Australia.
authors.forename: Jennifer S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Burt
authors.affiliation: b Department of Psychology , University of Western Ontario , London, ON , Canada.
authors.forename: Debra
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Jared
mesh_terms: D003657:Decision Making; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012660:Semantics; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D014825:Vocabulary
keywords: Adults; Homophone detection; Homophones; Lexical decision; Lexical expertise