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Interactions of length and overlapin the TRACE model of spoken word recognition

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Abstract

What determines degree of competition among phonologicallysimilar words? One proposal is that proportion of overlappredicts competition independently of word length. We arguethat proportion of overlap may provide descriptive adequacy,but does not provide an explanation. We show that TRACEcorrectly predicts patterns previously attributed to proportionof overlap. In additional simulations, with independentmanipulations of word length and proportion of overlap,proportion of overlap fails to predict the full pattern of results.We discuss how competition dynamics in TRACE modulatecompetition as word length and proportion of overlap change.These results have implications for theories of human spokenword recognition, and will motivate experiments to test thesenew TRACE predictions.

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