PSEUDOHOMOPHONE EFFECTS AND MODELS OF WORD RECOGNITION

Two experiments examined factors that influence the processing of pseu dohomophones (nonwords such as brane or joak, which sound like words) and nonpseudohomophones (such as brone and joap, which do not sound li ke words). In Experiment 1, pseudohomophones yielded faster naming lat encies and slower lexical-decision latencies than did nonpseudohomopho nes, replicating results of R. S. McCann and D. Besner (1987) and R. S . McCann, D. Besner, and E. Davelaar (1988). The magnitude of the effe ct was related to subjects' speed in lexical decision but not naming. In Experiment 2, both immediate and delayed naming conditions were use d. There was again a significant pseudohomophone effect that did not c hange in magnitude across conditions. These results indicate that pseu dohomophone effects in the lexical-decision and naming tasks have diff erent bases. In lexical decision, they reflect the pseudohomophone's a ctivation of phonological and semantic information associated with wor ds. In naming, they reflect differences in ease of articulating famili ar versus unfamiliar pronunciations. Implications of these results con cerning models of word recognition are discussed, focusing on how pseu dohomophone effects can arise within models that do not incorporate wo rd-specific representations, such as the M. S. Seidenberg and J. L. Mc Clelland (1989) model.