Abstract:

Two experiments are reported, one conducted with English native speakers and one conducted with Greek native speakers, that examined the relationship between phonology and orthography (the implicit effect of orthography and the implicit effect of phonology) in the auditory rhyme decision task and the auditory spelling judgement task. It is investigated how the spelling of a word affects subjects’ rhyme decisions, which can be done only on the basis of phonological information. It is also investigated how the sound of a word affects subjects’ spelling decisions in a spelling judgement task, which requires an explicit decision on the similarity of the spellings of two words. People activate and use orthographic information in the rhyme task and are faster to decide that two spoken words rhyme when these are spelled similarly than dissimilarly, and are slower to decide that two words do not rhyme if these are spelled similarly than dissimilarly. Also people activate and use phonological information in the spelling task and are faster to decide that two spoken words have the same spelling when these rhyme, and are slower to decide that two words do not have the same spelling if these do not rhyme.