Variation and assimilation in German - Institut für Phonetik

554 COENEN, ZWITSERLOOD, AND BOÈLTE
TABLE 4
Experiment 2: Mean RTs in ms and error percentages (in parentheses) as a function of
conditions
for 350 ms. Each list contained 108 experimental trials and 108 spoken
llers with pseudoword targets, half of which were form-related to their
primes. In addition, there were 40 warm up trials. The procedure was the
same as in Experiment 1, except that there was no break. The experiment
lasted about 20 minutes.
Results
Legality of assimilation
Direction
Phonologically legal Phonologically illegal
and type Context Unchanged Changed Unchanged Changed
Regressive Viable 527 (4.9) 628 (7.4) 537 (1.9) 664 (12.6)
place Control 619 (6.2) 619 (4.3) 673 (5.8) 666 (9.7)
Progressive Viable 544 (1.9) 639 (9.4) 546 (1.6) 633 (5.6)
place Control 648 (8.3) 636 (9.0) 636 (6.8) 630 (4.8)
Progressive Viable 519 (1.9) 599 (4.5) 534 (3.2) 618 (8.0)
voice Control 614 (4.5) 616 (3.7) 671 (8.8) 650 (7.6)
Data from two participants and three item sets were excluded from
analyses because of high error rates, and from one item set because of
technical problems. In addition, only item sets that performed satisfactorily
in the pretest were included. Incorrect answers and reaction times above
1500 ms were discarded. As in Experiment 1, List was included as a factor
in the subject analyses (Pollatsek & Well, 1995). The overall mean error
rate was 5.9%. Mean reaction times and error rates for all material groups
and conditions are shown in Table 4. For information on t-tests for priming
effects see Appendix C.
Regressive place assimilation, phonologically legal. The effect of Test/
Control was signicant for F 1(1, 53) ˆ 20.785, p < .001, but not for F 2(1,
10) ˆ 1.236, p ˆ .292. 6 The main effect for Change was signicant with
F 1(1, 53) ˆ 32.473, p < .001, and marginal for F 2(1, 10) ˆ 4.207, p ˆ .067.
The interaction was also signicant: F 1(1, 53) ˆ 22.391, p < .001; F 2(1, 10)
ˆ 4.974, p ˆ .050. There were no effects on errors. The interaction shows
that while unchanged items (wort) showed a sound priming effect of 92 ms,
6 Only 11 of 18 item sets were tested in this material group, which reduced power in the
analysis.