Orthography shapes the perception of speech: The consistency effect in auditory word recognition

Inconsistency in the spelling-to-sound mapping hurts visual word perception and reading aloud (i.e., the traditional consistency effect). In the prese nt experiment, we found a consistency effect in auditory word perception: W ords with phonological rimes that could be spelled in multiple ways produce d longer auditory lexical decision latencies and more errors than did words with rimes that could be spelled only one way. This finding adds strong su pport to the claim that orthography affects the perception of spoken words. This effect was predicted by a model that assumes a coupling between ortho graphy and phonology that is functional in both visual and auditory word pe rception.