SINGLE-WORD SHADOWING AND THE STUDY OF LEXICAL ACCESS

A new procedure called single-word shadowing was applied to the study of lexical access in context. Subjects listened to word pairs or sente nces recorded in one voice and were asked to repeat the target word si gnaled by a voice shift. This technique yielded rapid and robust primi ng effects in normal adult subjects in word pairs and in a sentence co ntext. Regression analyses showed that the semantic priming effects we re large and significant, even when several additional factors believe d to affect lexical access were controlled. Evidence was found for rob ust semantic priming in the healthy elderly and in children from 7 to 11 years of age, and there was also evidence for a change in the size and nature of context effects across the lifespan. Because single word shadowing works across a broad age range and does not require reading , secondary tasks, or metalinguistic judgments, it is a promising tool for the study of lexical access in a range of different populations.