Authors:

Tyler, L.K., Marslen-Wilson, W.D., Rentoul, J. & Hanney, P.

Reference:

Year of publication:

1988

CBU number:

2243

Abstract:

Theories of spoken word-recognition differ in the claims they make about continuous and discontinuous mapping of the speech input onto mental representations of lexical form. The research reported here contrasts the claims of a discontinuous, prefix-stripping model, and of a cohort-based continuous access model. In three experiments, using the gating, auditory lexical decision, and auditory naming tasks, we compared recognition-points for prefixed words (such as miscount) and their corresponding free stems (such as count). The results disconfirm the prefix-stripping model, showing that the recognition-point for a prefixed word was determined by the properties of the word as a complete, full form, and not, as a prefix-stripping model requires, by the properties of its stem.