The influence of the phonological neighborhood clustering coefficient on spoken word recognition

Abstract

Clustering coefficient-a measure derived from the new science of networks-refers to the proportion of phonological neighbors of a target word that are also neighbors of each other. Consider the words bat, hat, and can, all of which are neighbors of the word cat; the words bat and hat are also neighbors of each other. In a perceptual identification task, words with a low clustering coefficient (i.e., few neighbors are neighbors of each other) were more accurately identified than words with a high clustering coefficient (i.e., many neighbors are neighbors of each other). In a lexical decision task, words with a low clustering coefficient were responded to more quickly than words with a high clustering coefficient. These findings suggest that the structure of the lexicon (i.e., the similarity relationships among neighbors of the target word measured by clustering coefficient) influences lexical access in spoken word recognition. Simulations of the TRACE and Shortlist models of spoken word recognition failed to account for the present findings. A framework for a new model of spoken word recognition is proposed.

Figure 1

A portion of the phonological network examined in Vitevitch (2008). Depicted are the word speech, phonological neighbors of speech, and the phonological neighbors of those neighbors.

Figure 2

The left panel represents a word with a higher clustering coefficient (badge), whereas the right panel represents a word with a lower clustering coefficient (log). Note that both words have the same number of phonological neighbors.