Single Word Production in English: The Role of Subsyllabic Units during Phonological Encoding

Five experiments investigated the role of sublexical units in English single word production. L. Ferrand, J. Segui, and G. W. Humphreys (1997) reported a priming effect that was most effective when primes and targets shared the first syllable. Experiments 1A and 1B failed to replicate this effect but Experiment 1B showed that subsyllabic units play a role in speech production. This role was further explored using a picture naming task in Experiment 2. Naming latencies were shortest when the segmental overlap between prime and target (the picture name) was largest, regardless of the syllable structure of the target. Experiments 3 and 4 replicated this segmental overlap effect with different sets of words as targets. Experiment 5 showed that the magnitude of the overlap effect increased with longer prime exposure duration. The implications of these results for theories of phonological encoding in speech production are discussed.