VISUAL LEXICAL ACCESS IS INITIALLY PHONOLOGICAL .1. EVIDENCE FROM ASSOCIATIVE PRIMING BY WORDS, HOMOPHONES, AND PSEUDOHOMOPHONES

In 9 experiments, a target word (e.g., frog) was named following an as sociate (TOAD), or a word (e.g., TOWED) or nonword (e.g., TODE) homoph onic with the associate. At brief (e.g., 50 ms) stimulus onset asynchr onies (SOAs), the 3 primes produced equal associative priming. At a lo ng SOA (250 ms), priming by TOAD was matched by TODE but not by TOWED. Equal priming at brief SOAs by the 3 primes and no priming by orthogr aphic controls (TOLD, TORD) suggests that lexical access is initially phonological. TOWED priming less than TODE at SOA = 250 ms suggests th at phonologically activated representations whose input orthography do es not match the addressed spelling (available only for words) are eve ntually suppressed. Phonological constraints on lexical access precede and set the stage for orthographic constraints.