Cross-modal priming evidence for phonology-to-orthography activation in visual word recognition

Subjects were asked to indicate which item of a word/nonword pair was a wor d. On critical trials the nonword was a pseudohomophone of the word. RTs of dyslexics were shorter in blocks of trials in which a congruent auditory p rime was simultaneously presented with the visual stimuli. RTs of normal re aders were longer for high frequency words when there was auditory priming. This provides evidence that phonology can activate orthographic representa tions; the size and direction of the effect of auditory priming on visual l exical decision appear to be a function of the relative speeds with which s ight and hearing activate orthography. (C) 1999 Academic Press.