Does accentual variation in the pronunciation of French words influence their recognition? It depends on the ear of presentation

Outhmane Rassili (1) , Amandine Michelas (1) , Sophie Dufour (1)

1 LPL - Laboratoire Parole et Langage

This repetition priming study examined how word accentual variation in French is represented and processed during spoken word recognition. Mismatched primes in the accentual pattern were less effective than matched primes in facilitating target word recognition when the targets were presented in the left ear but not in the right ear. This indicates that in French, the accentual pattern of words influences their recognition when processing is constrained in the right hemisphere. This study pleads in favor of two memory systems, the one retaining words in an abstract format and the other retaining words in their various forms.

Keywords: Spoken word recognition; French accentuation; long-term repetition priming; hemispheric asymmetries

Domains: Cognitive science

Outhmane Rassili, Amandine Michelas, Sophie Dufour. Does accentual variation in the pronunciation of French words influence their recognition? It depends on the ear of presentation. JASA Express Letters, 2023, 3 (3), pp.035204. ⟨10.1121/10.0017516⟩. ⟨hal-04025736⟩