Waiting for lexical access: Cochlear implants or severely degraded input lead listeners to process speech less incrementally.

ABSTRACT: Spoken language unfolds over time. Consequently, there are brief periods of ambiguity, when incomplete input can match many possible words. Typical listeners solve this problem by immediately activating multiple candidates which compete for recognition. In two experiments using the visual world paradigm, we examined real-time lexical competition in prelingually deaf cochlear implant (CI) users, and normal hearing (NH) adults listening to severely degraded speech. In Experiment 1, adolescent CI users and NH controls matched spoken words to arrays of pictures including pictures of the target word and phonological competitors. Eye-movements to each referent were monitored asa measure of how strongly that candidate was considered over time. Relative to NH controls, CI users showed a large dela

SUBMITTER: McMurray B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5612912 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature