THE GATING PARADIGM - EFFECTS OF PRESENTATION FORMAT ON SPOKEN WORD RECOGNITION BY CHILDREN AND ADULTS

This study focused on the impact of stimulus presentation format in th e gating paradigm with age. Two presentation formats were employed-the standard, successive format and a duration-blocked one, in which gate s from word onset were blocked by duration (i.e., gates for the same w ord were not temporally adjacent). In Experiment 1, the effect of pres entation format on adults' recognition was assessed as a function of r esponse format (written vs. oral). In Experiment 2, the effect of pres entation format on kindergarteners', first grades', and adults' recogn ition was assessed with an oral response format only. Performance was typically poorer for the successive format than for the duration-block ed one. The role of response perservation and negative feedback in pro ducing this effect is considered, as is the effect of word frequency a nd cohort size on recognition. Although the successive format yields a conservative picture of recognition, presentation format did not have a markedly different effect across the three age levels studied. Thus , the gating paradigm would seem to be an appropriate one for making d evelopmental comparisons of spoken word recognition.