Activation of embedded words in spoken word recognition

Three cross-modal associative priming experiments investigated whether speech input activates words that are embedded in other words. When the embedded word corresponded to the final syllable of a bisyllabic carrier (boos, meaning angry embedded in framboos, meaning raspberry), facilitatory priming effects were observed for related targets of the embedded word. No effects were found when the end-embedded word did not start at the onset of a syllable (wijn meaning wine in zwijn meaning swine). Beginning-embedded words were activated only if the carrier was a nonword (vel meaning skin in velk), but not when the carrier was a word (vel in velg, meaning rim). The results support the joint operation of metric segmentation and lexical competition: Words are activated if their onset matches the onset of a strong syllable; words are then excluded on the basis of interword competition.