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Abstract:
- During the recognition of spoken words multiple word candidates that match the speech input are activated and compete for recognition. Numerous eye-tracking studies have confirmed this phonological competition process [e.g., 1]: I.e., listeners fixate objects with names that overlapin onset with the name of a target object more than objects with unrelated names.
- Subsequent studies have shown that competitor activation is further modulated by lexical
frequency: When asked to click on target pictures, English listeners fixate pictures of high
frequency competitors more than pictures of low frequency competitors [2].
- Furthermore, in sentence context, semantic information from preceding verbs has been found to reduce competitor activation: Dutch listeners no longer fixate competitor pictures more than distractor pictures when a preceding verb constrains the subject noun phrase [3]. Similarly, English listeners start looking at pictures of suitable object noun phrases after semantically constraining verbs [4].
- Using eye tracking, the present study investigated the interaction of lexical frequency effects with effects from verb constraints in German.
