Effect of onset cluster complexity in speeded naming: A test of rule-basedapproaches

Undergraduates participated in 3 speeded naming experiments investigating t he effect of onset cluster complexity on response latency Words with comple x onsets (e.g., spin) had shorter response latencies than words with simple onsets (e.g., sin), despite the fact that words with complex onsets had mo re letters and phonemes but fewer neighbors, properties previously found to increase naming latency. Moreover, the magnitude of the effect depended on the particular complex onset. These onset complexity effects can be explai ned by the constraint imposed by the 2nd letter on the Ist letter and Ist p honeme for words with an onset. This constraint ultimately arises because p honemes increase in sonority from the beginning of the syllable to the nucl eus. Dual-route models cannot account for these results, but analogy and pa rallel distributed models can, if the criterion to initiate articulation is based on the initial phoneme.