The Interaction of Lexical Semantics and Cohort Competition in Spoken Word Recognition: An fMRI Study

Abstract

Abstract■ Spoken word recognition involves the activation of multiple word candidates on the basis of the initial speech input-the "cohort"-and selection among these competitors. Selection may be driven primarily by bottom-up acoustic-phonetic inputs or it may be modulated by other aspects of lexical representation, such as a wordʼs meaning [Marslen-Wilson, W. D. Functional parallelism in spoken word-recognition. Cognition, 25, 71-102, 1987]. We examined these potential interactions in an fMRI study by presenting participants with words and pseudowords for lexical decision. In a factorial design, we manipulated (a) cohort competition (high/low competitive cohorts which vary the number of competing word candidates) and (b) the wordʼs semantic properties (high/low imageability). A previous behavioral study [Tyler, L. K., Voice, J. K., & Moss, H. E. The interaction of meaning and sound in spoken word recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 7, 320-326, 2000] showed that imageability facilitated word recognition but only for words in high competition cohorts. Here we found greater activity in the left inferior frontal gyrus (BA 45, 47) and the right inferior frontal gyrus (BA 47) with increased cohort competition, an imageability effect in the left posterior middle temporal gyrus/angular gyrus (BA 39), and a significant interaction between imageability and cohort competition in the left posterior superior temporal gyrus/ middle temporal gyrus (BA 21, 22). In words with high competition cohorts, high imageability words generated stronger activity than low imageability words, indicating a facilitatory role of imageability in a highly competitive cohort context. For words in low competition cohorts, there was no effect of imageability. These results support the behavioral data in showing that selection processes do not rely solely on bottom-up acousticphonetic cues but rather that the semantic properties of candidate words facilitate discrimination between competitors. ■

Phonological and syntactic competition effects in spoken word recognition: evidence from corpus-based statistics

“…We obtained measures of lexico-phonological competition for each noun and verb stem using cohort size , that is, the total number of words sharing the first two phonemes with the target word (e.g. “/æl/” of “alligator”) (Tyler et al, 2000; Zhuang et al, 2011). Lexico-phonological competition increases when cohort size becomes larger with more word candidates competing with each other in the cohort.…”

“…In terms of cognitive competition processes, the LIFG has long been claimed to play a domain-general role of selection among competing representations (Badre, Poldrack, Paré-Blagoev, Insler, & Wagner, 2005; Miller & Cohen, 2001; Thompson-Schill, Bedny, & Goldberg, 2005; Thompson-Schill, D’Esposito, Aguirre, & Farah, 1997). Supporting evidence has come from consistent activation of LIFG across various selection and competition studies, including lexical competition (Zhuang, Randall, Stamatakis, Marslen-Wilson, & Tyler, 2011; Zhuang, Tyler, Randall, Stamatakis, & Marslen-Wilson, 2014), semantic competition (Rodd, Davis, & Johnsrude, 2005), and sentential syntactic competition (January, Trueswell, & Thompson-Schill, 2008). …”

“…For our stimuli, lexico-phonological competition is measured by “cohort size” – the number of word candidates in a cohort that share the same initial two phonemes with the target word (e.g. “/æl/” of “alligator”) (Tyler, Voice, & Moss, 2000; Zhuang et al, 2011). Lexico-syntactic competition is competition over the different subcategorisation frame (i.e.…”

Interactions between visual and semantic processing during object recognition revealed by modulatory effects of age of acquisition

“…We know relatively little, however, about how such factors modulate neural processing. fMRI studies have helped to identify the brain regions whose activity levels are influenced by different properties of objects and words (e.g., Carreiras et al, 2006;de Zubicaray et al, 2012;Ellis et al, 2006;Graves et al, 2007;Zhuang et al, 2011), but exactly how and when those factors exert their influence remains poorly understood.…”

The Neural Basis of Inhibitory Effects of Semantic and Phonological Neighbors in Spoken Word Production

“…This study used fMRI and found reduced activation for words with a minimal pair neighbor (e.g., cape , which has the onset minimal pair neighbor gape ) compared to words without such a neighbor (e.g., cake , which has no such neighbor) in posterior superior temporal gyrus (pSTG), supramarginal gyrus (SMG), and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG). Studies that examined phonological neighbors in spoken word recognition have similarly implicated SMG and pSTG (Okada & Hickok, 2006; Prabhakaran et al, 2006; Righi et al, 2009), along with IFG (Righi et al, 2009; Zhuang et al, 2011). …”