THE MAPPING OF PHONETIC INFORMATION TO LEXICAL REPRESENTATIONS IN SPANISH: EVIDENCE FROM EYE MOVEMENTS

Andrea Weber1, Alissa Melinger2 & Lourdes Lara Tapia1
1Saarland University; 2Dundee University

ID 1016
[full paper]

In a visual-world study, we examined spoken-word recognition in Spanish. Spanish listeners followed spoken instructions to click on pictures while their eye movements were monitored. When instructed to click on the picture of a door (puerta), they experienced interference from the picture of a pig (puerco). The same interference was observed when the displays contained a printed name or a combination of a picture with its name printed underneath. The results confirm for Spanish the simultaneous activation of multiple lexical candidates that match the unfolding speech signal. Implications of the finding that the effect can be induced with standard pictorial displays as well as with orthographic displays will be discussed.