Phonological priming in spoken word recognition with bisyllabic targets

Four experiments were carried out to examine phonological priming effects o n bisyllabic target words. In Experiments 1a and 1b, auditorily presented m onosyllabic word and pseudoword primes facilitated lexical decisions to aud itorily presented bisyllabic words. This facilitation was found for primes overlapping the targets' initial syllable (e.g., "ver'' [worm in French] pr imed "VERTIGE'' [VERTIGO]) and for primes overlapping the targets' final sy llable (e.g., "tige'' [stem] primed "VERTIGE''). Experiment 2 replicated th e initial-overlap effect for monosyllabic word primes using a crossmodal (a uditory-visual) method; however no facilitation was observed for final-over lap nor for bisyllabic primes (e.g., "verger'' [orchard] did not facilitate VERTIGE). In Experiment 3, the initial overlap facilitation effect was rep licated in a naming task. These results are interpreted in terms of activat ion and deactivation of candidates.