Evidence for a cascade model of lexical access in speech production

Abstract

How word production unfolds remains controversial. Serial models posit that phonological encoding begins only after lexical node selection, whereas cascade models hold that it can occur before selection. Both models were evaluated by testing whether unselected lexical nodes influence phonological encoding in the picture-picture interference paradigm. English speakers were shown pairs of superimposed pictures and were instructed to name one picture and ignore another. Naming was faster when target pictures were paired with phonologically related (bed-bell) than with unrelated (bed-pin) distractors. This suggests that the unspoken distractors exerted a phonological influence on production. This finding is inconsistent with serial models but in line with cascade ones. The facilitation effect was not replicated in Italian with the same pictures, supporting the view that the effect found in English was caused by the phonological properties of the stimuli.