On the Nature of Semantic Constraints on Lexical Access

Abstract

We present two eye-tracking experiments that investigate lexical frequency and semantic context constraints in spoken-word recognition in German. In both experiments, the pivotal words were pairs of nouns overlapping at onset but varying in lexical frequency. In Experiment 1, German listeners showed an expected frequency bias towards high-frequency competitors (e.g., Blume, 'flower') when instructed to click on low-frequency targets (e.g., Bluse, 'blouse'). In Experiment 2, semantically constraining context increased the availability of appropriate low-frequency target words prior to word onset, but did not influence the availability of semantically inappropriate high-frequency competitors at the same time. Immediately after target word onset, however, the activation of high-frequency competitors was reduced in semantically constraining sentences, but still exceeded that of unrelated distractor words significantly. The results suggest that (1) semantic context acts to downgrade activation of inappropriate competitors rather than to exclude them from competition, and (2) semantic context influences spoken-word recognition, over and above anticipation of upcoming referents.

“Where Are The . . .Fixations?”: Grammatical Number Cues Guide Anticipatory Fixations To Upcoming Referents And Reduce Lexical Competition

“…The third key finding was that although grammatically constraining context reduced activation of contextually inappropriate cohort competitors, listeners remained sensitive to the bottom-up input and preferentially fixated on the competitors more than the phonologically unrelated distractors. This is similar to studies using other forms of context that have shown residual activation for contextually inappropriate cohort competitors (e.g., see Dahan & Tanenhaus, 2004;Strand et al, 2017;Weber & Crocker, 2012) . Why might listeners consider lexical candidates that are clearly inconsistent with the preceding context?…”

“…In VWP research, contextual constraints on integration with the bottom-up input manifest as a reduction in fixations to contextually inappropriate cohort competitors (Altmann & Kamide, 1999;Dahan & Tanenhaus, 2004;Kukona et al, 2014;Weber & Crocker, 2012) . For instance, when presented after an unconstraining context like "Sam chose the .…”

The Hardest Butter to Button: Immediate Context Effects in Spoken Word Identification

“…For instance, if the word "kanon" was preceded by the verb "roest" ("rust") for which camel is an implausible subject, looks towards the camel were significantly reduced and were not in fact significantly different to looks towards a phonologically unrelated object. Similar findings have since been reported by Barr (2008) using English stimuli, by Weber and Crocker (2012) in German, and by Revill, Tanenhaus, and Aslin (2008) using an artificial language. In each case, a constraining verb reduced fixations on pictures that were implausible completions of the sentence.…”

“…Even allowing for a 200-ms lag between the cognitive event and the corresponding eye movement (Matin, Shao, & Boff, 1993; but see Altmann, 2011), this still means that context effects could have arisen at any point during the acoustic lifetime of the word. Similarly, Magnuson et al (2008) and Weber and Crocker (2012) considered gaze probability averaged across a 200-700-ms window. Chen and Boland (2008) conducted analyses at 100-ms intervals but, as already noted, did not find a significant context effect prior to 600 ms. Barr (2008), in contrast, adopted a curve-fitting approach, which considered the temporal evolution of gaze likelihood, but assumed a priori that the context effect began at 200 ms.…”

Models of spoken‐word recognition

“…Immediate access to semantic information in continuous speech can help, for example, to reduce the activation of semantically implausible candidate words. 83 Since all words are represented with the same set of nodes in DCM, there is no explicit activation of a candidate word and no direct competition between them. Instead, activation and competition are implicit in the blend formed by the patterns of the candidate words.…”