AUDITORY LEXICAL DECISION

Auditory lexical decision entails speeded classification of spoken wor ds and nonwords. Given its implicit requirement of full lexical proces sing, auditory lexical decision has wide applicability. Indeed, the pa radigm is currently used to study basic processes in word recognition, the nature of the mental lexicon, effects of word frequency, neighbou r effects and various other phenomena of isolated word perception. In addition, auditory lexical decision is commonly used as a measure of p riming and context effects, and as an index of impairments following b rain damage. This summary reviews the strengths and weaknesses of the task, and provides citations to prominent articles.