The differential role of syllabic structure in stem completion for French and English

Author(s): Lussier, I., Beland, R.

Journal/Book: Eur J Cogn Psychol. 1998; 10: 27 Church Rd, Hove, East Sussex, England BN3 2FA. Psychology Press. 75-112.

Abstract: Four experiments were carried out to examine the role of a word's internal structure (i.e. Syllables) in stem completion for French and English speakers. Subjects studied a series of unrelated words, selected so that two words shared their initial consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) segment (e.g. BALANCE-BALCON). Subjects were then presented with CV or CVC stems (e.g. BA or BAL), half of which corresponded to the studied words' initial segment, and were asked to produce the first word that came to mind. Half the subjects performed the entire task in the auditory modality, half did so in the visual modality (Experiment 1). In both modalities, French subjects completed the stems more often with studied words in which the initial syllable matched the stem structure (e.g. BALCON for BAL) than with studied words that did not match (e.g. BALANCE for BAL). These syllabic effects were dissociable from explicit memory (Experiment 2) and appear to be language-specific, since they were obtained with French speakers but not with English speakers (Experiments 3 and 4). The results are highly consistent with the notion that implicit memory for words reflects the operations of perceptual phonological representations which are organised differently in French and English.

Note: Article Peretz I, Univ Montreal, Dept Psychol, CP 6128, Succ Ctr Ville, Montreal, PQ H3C 3J7, CANADA

Keyword(s): SPOKEN-WORD RECOGNITION; EXPLICIT MEMORY; IMPLICIT MEMORY; SPEECH SEGMENTATION; OLDER ADULTS; TIME-COURSE; ASSOCIATIONS; AMNESIA; TESTS; PERCEPTION

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