Poster #118 - Phonological priming and spoken word production: Developmental and methodological influences

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Language, Communication

Integrative Statement

To rapidly and effortlessly produce language, children must be skilled at retrieving representations stored in their mental lexicons. Studies from spoken word recognition have shown that while there is continuity across children’s and adults’ processing systems, these systems are not fully developed in school-aged children (Rigler et al., 2015). Few studies, however, have looked at on-line processing during spoken word production in development. In priming studies, naming latencies on phonologically related trials (e.g., auditory prime ‘ball’ followed by target image ‘BED’) are longer than those on unrelated trials (cake-BED). This inhibitory priming effect is significant in half the studies in the literature (Brooks & MacWhinney, 2000; Munson et al., 2005; Seiger-Gardner & Brooks, 2008, Seiger-Gardner & Schwartz, 2008), only significant with older children (7;6 and above), and only with early stimulus-onset-asynchronies (SOAs). In early SOAs, the auditory prime precedes the presentation of the target image (e.g., -500 ms, the prime precedes the target by 500 ms). Thus, the results are variable and there is a lack of data from younger age groups. What might we expect with learners under 5 years of age who are just beginning to produce language? This is an open question given that the direction of phonologically priming in spoken word comprehension changes between 18 and 24 months, shifting from facilitative to inhibitory priming (Mani & Plunkett, 2010, 2011).

We simplified the task and used an early SOA of -1000 ms. Experiment 1 used a mixed-trial design with children aged 3-to 6-years (N=59) and adults (N=16). Analyses were based on speech reaction times (SRTs) to target images that were compared across three priming conditions: repetition (ball-BALL), related (book-BALL), and unrelated (cake-BALL). Participants were slower to name target images in the related condition compared to the unrelated condition; however, inhibitory priming effects were only significant with participants aged 5-years and older (Table 1). Experiment 2 used a blocked-trial design with children aged 3- to 4-years (N=32). The order of the blocks was Repetition-Related-Unrelated or Repetition-Unrelated-Related. Both 3- and 4-year-olds showed priming effects; however, block order influenced the priming direction (inhibitory priming in the order Repetition-Related-Unrelated and facilitative priming in the order Repetition-Unrelated-Related). An inspection of the data indicated that blocking the conditions caused practiced effects. Children’s SRT responses were slowest at the beginning of the blocks, but became faster towards the end of the blocks. This practice effect was stronger in unrelated blocks vs. related blocks. To examine priming effects independent from practice effects, we restricted the analyses to the second half of the blocks’ data. In this analysis, only the inhibitory priming effect was significant (Table 2).

When children access sound-meaning relationships to produce a target word, this results in spreading activation. Our novel findings from spoken word production are similar to the literature from spoken word recognition - while there is continuity across children’s and adults’ processing systems, these systems are still developing in childhood.

Authors

• Tania Zamuner, University of Ottawa
  Presenting Author

• Keara Boyce, Dalhousie University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lara Kilbertus, University of British Columbia
  Non-Presenting Author