PHONOLOGICAL AND ORTHOGRAPHIC EFFECTS IN AUDITORY LEXICAL ACCESS IN BRAIN-DAMAGED PATIENTS

The effects of phonology and orthography on auditory lexical access we re examined in fluent and nonfluent aphasics and right-brain damaged p atients using an auditory lexical decision task. An effect of orthogra phy independent of brain-damage was suggested by the findings that, ov erall, responses were faster to words preceded by primes that were bot h phonologically and orthographically related to the target than to th ose that were unrelated and responses were slower relative to the unre lated condition to targets that were orthographically but not phonolog ically related to their primes. The results concerning the effect of p honology were equivocal.