The effect of voice onset time differences on lexical access in Dutch

Van Alphen, P. M., & McQueen, J. M. (2006). The effect of voice onset time differences on lexical access in Dutch. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32(1), 178-196. doi:10.1037/0096-1523.32.1.178.
Effects on spoken-word recognition of prevoicing differences in Dutch initial voiced plosives were examined. In 2 cross-modal identity-priming experiments, participants heard prime words and nonwords beginning with voiced plosives with 12, 6, or 0 periods of prevoicing or matched items beginning with voiceless plosives and made lexical decisions to visual tokens of those items. Six-period primes had the same effect as 12-period primes. Zero-period primes had a different effect, but only when their voiceless counterparts were real words. Listeners could nevertheless discriminate the 6-period primes from the 12- and 0-period primes. Phonetic detail appears to influence lexical access only to the extent that it is useful: In Dutch, presence versus absence of prevoicing is more informative than amount of prevoicing.
Publication type
Journal article
Publication date
2006

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