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Downloaded By: [Universitaetsbibliothek] At: 15:27 19 June 2007 PHONOLOGICAL PRIMING 381 question was examined using the phonological priming paradigm with bisyllabic words. We found that partial priming (i.e., when the prime is the rst or the second syllable of the target) facilitates target processing when the prime/target pairs are presented in the auditory modality (Experiment 1a and 1b). On the basis of the results of Experiments 2 and 3, we suggested that nal overlap facilitation was prelexical, whereas initial overlap facilitation reected the activation of candidates at a lexical level of processing. Interpretation of the partial priming results In the interpretation of the results, we have made a distinction between the effects observed in the nal and beginning overlap conditions. For partial priming, we found a nal-overlap facilitation effect for word and pseudoword primes in the auditory-auditory modality. The nal-overlap facilitation disappeared when primes and targets were presented in two different modalities. Taken together, the results suggest that the nal overlap facilitation effect is prelexical. By prelexical, we mean that the processing of the prime does not involve the activation of the lexical representation of the target. The facilitation effect does not arise from the preactivation of the representation of the target but from the preactivation of the sublexical units (e.g., phonemes) shared by the prime and the target. If the sublexical units preactivated during the processing of the prime are not reheard, as it is the case in the crossmodal condition, the nal overlap facilitation is not observed. In the initial-overlap partial priming condition (e.g., ver-VERTIGE), we also found facilitation but we suggest that the processing underlying the beginning overlap facilitation effect is different from that at the basis of the nal facilitation effect. We found this effect with both word and pseudoword primes in the auditory-auditory modality condition. Moreover the effect remained when tested in the crossmodal condition. For that reason, we suggest that the beginning overlap facilitation effect occurs at the lexical level. By lexical, we mean that the processing of the prime induces the activation of the lexical representation of the target. The facilitation effect results from the fact that the lexical representation of the target (e.g., VERTIGE) has been preactivated during the processing of the prime (e.g., ver) and has not been deactivated at the time of target presentation. This is not the case in the control (unrelated) condition in which the lexical representation of the target has not been preactivated at all. The facilitation effect is based on the fact that the representation of the target remains activated after the end of prime presentation. This implies that the system does not take the silence occurring at the end of the prime (ISI) as mismatching information regarding the form representation of the
Downloaded By: [Universitaetsbibliothek] At: 15:27 19 June 2007 382 SPINELLI, SEGUI AND RADEAU target. Indeed, we assume that the silence in this case is short enough not to be taken as a word boundary and therefore as mismatching information. A suggestive comparison could be made with the silences (closure durations) that are characteristic of stop consonants. In normal speech, the closure duration of voiceless stop consonants is usually a bit longer than 50 ms (Crystal & House, 1988) and this suggests that our short silence could not be taken as a cue for a word boundary. Another point that should be considered is the activation of the lexical representation of the prime word which becomes activated and competes with the target for recognition. This representation can be activated not only during the processing of the prime but also during the processing of the target (as in Experiments 1a, 2 and 3 where the targets were formed of two embedded words). Previous studies have suggested that during the processing of such carrier words, the embedded words are activated under some conditions. Although it seems clear that the initial embedded words become activated during the processing of the carrier word (Prather & Swinney, 1977; see also Frauenfelder & Peeters, 1990), the results are not as clear for the nal embedded words. Evidence for the activation of the second embedded word in bisyllabic carrier words has sometimes been found (Luce & Cluff, 1998; Shillcock, 1990; Vroomen & De Gelder, 1997) but not in all experiments (Gow & Gordon, 1995; Prather & Swinney, 1977; see also Frauenfelder & Peeters, 1990). In principle, if embedded words become activated during the processing of the carrier word, they should compete with the carrier word for recognition and then lower the activation of the carrier word. 4 However, in Experiments 1a (where the targets were carrier words composed of two embedded words) and 1b (where the targets were composed of two pseudowords), we obtained exactly the same pattern of results. This means that when the prime is a word, the fact that its representation becomes activated does not inuence the facilitation effect. This result could be accounted for in several ways. A rst possibility is that, as is postulated in the early version of the Cohort model (Marslen- Wilson & Welsh, 1978), there is no lateral inhibition between lexical nodes and therefore, words do not compete directly with each other. In this case, the activation of ver and other members of the cohort does not have a direct inuence on the activation of the target vertige. Another possibility is that there is direct competition between candidates, via lateral inhibition (as postulated in the models TRACE and Shortlist). As in the cohort case, the prime word ver becomes activated, as well as other candidates such as verve, vertu, verveine . . . . On this account, the target receives inhibition 4 Surprisingly, Luce and Lyons (1999) showed that bisyllabic words containing an initial embedded word were processed faster than bisyllabic words composed of two pseudowords.
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