Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-hfldf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-24T19:33:57.430Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Lexical influences on nonword repetition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Christine A. Dollaghan ,
Maureen E. Biber  and
Thomas F. Campbell
Christine A. Dollaghan*
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Maureen E. Biber
Affiliation:
Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh
Thomas F. Campbell
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
*
Christine A. Dollaghan, University of Pittsburgh, Communication Science and Disorders, 3347 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. e-mail: dollagha@vms.cis.pitt.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The present investigation explores the hypothesis that lexical information influences performance on nonword repetition tasks. The subjects – 30 normally achieving, school-aged boys – repeated multisyllabic nonword pairs, constructed to vary only in the lexicality of their constituent stressed syllables. Nonwords with stressed syllables corresponding to real words were repeated significantly more accurately than nonwords with non-lexical stressed syllables; stressed syllable lexicality primarily influenced repetition of the remaining unstressed syllables. Subsequent analyses revealed that the overwhelming majority of repetition errors operated to transform non-lexical sequences into real words, even when doing so violated both strong acoustic cues and articulatory ease. We conclude that lexical long-term memory information intrudes on nonword repetition performance, including stimuli that are within the limits of immediate memory span. These results suggest a number of caveats concerning the construction and interpretation of nonword repetition tasks and raise questions about the role of such tasks in assessing phonological working memory.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , April 1995 , pp. 211 - 222
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (1990). Guidelines for screening for hearing impairment and middle-ear disorders. ASHA, 32 (Supplement 2), 17–24.Google Scholar
Campbell, T., & Needleman, H. (in progress). Bone lead level as a predictor of speech and language deficits. Grant funded by the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.Google Scholar
Cluff, M., & Luce, P. (1990). Similarity neighborhoods of spoken two-syllable words: Retroactive effects on multiple activation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 16, 551–563.Google ScholarPubMed
Connine, C., Blasko, D., & Titone, D. (1993). Do the beginnings of spoken words have a special status in auditory word recognition? Journal of Memory and Language, 32, 193–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cutler, A. (1989). Auditory lexical access: Where do we start? In Marslen-Wilson, W. (Ed.), Lexical representation and process (pp. 342–356). Boston: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dollaghan, C., Biber, M., & Campbell, T. (1993). Constituent syllable effects in a nonsense word repetition task. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 36, 1051–1054.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dollaghan, C., Campbell, T., & Tomlin, R. (1990). Videonarration as a language sampling context. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 55, 582–590.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Frauenfelder, U., & Tyler, L. K. (1987). The process of spoken word recognition: An introduction. Cognition, 25, 1–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gathercole, S., & Baddeley, A. (1989). Evaluation of the role of phonological STM in the development of vocabulary in children: A longitudinal study. Journal of Memory and Language, 28, 200–213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gathercole, S., & Baddeley, A. (1990). Phonological memory deficits in language disordered children: Is there a causal connection? Journal of Memory and Language, 29, 336–360.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gathercole, S., Willis, C., Emslie, H., & Baddeley, A. (1991). The influences of number of syllables and wordlikeness on children's repetition of nonwords. Applied Psycholinguistics, 12, 349–367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grosjean, F., & Gee, J. (1987). Prosodic structure and spoken word recognition. Cognition, 25, 135–155.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Henry, L., & Millar, S. (1991). Memory span increase with age: A test of two hypotheses. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 51, 459–484.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hulme, C., Maughan, S., & Brown, G. (1991). Memory for familiar and unfamiliar words: Evidence for a long-term memory contribution to short-term memory span. Journal of Memory and Language, 30, 685–701.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamhi, A., Catts, H., Mauer, D., Apel, K., & Gentry, B. (1988). Phonological and spatial processing abilities in language- and reading-impaired children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 53, 316–327.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marslen-Wilson, W. (1987). Functional parallelism in spoken word-recognition. Cognition, 25, 71–102.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marslen-Wilson, W. (1989). Access and integration: Projecting sound onto meaning. In Marslen-Wilson, W. (Ed.), Lexical representation and process (pp. 3–24). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McClelland, J., & Elman, J. (1986). The TRACE model of speech perception. Cognitive Psychology, 18, 1–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McNeil, M., & Prescott, T. (1978). The Revised Token Test. Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.Google Scholar
Owens, R. (1991). Language disorders: A functional approach to assessment and intervention. New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Robbins, J., & Klee, T. (1987). Clinical assessment of oropharyngeal motor development in young children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 52, 271–277.Google ScholarPubMed
Snowling, M., Chiat, S., & Hulme, C. (1991). Words, nonwords and phonological processes: Some comments on Gathercole, Willis, Emslie and Baddeley. Applied Psycholinguistics, 12, 369–373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wechsler, D. (1974). Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children – Revised. San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar