Representation of Lexical Form

The authors attempted to determine whether surface representations of spoken words are mapped onto underlying, abstract representations. In particular, they tested the hypothesis that flaps - neutralized allophones of intervocalic /t/s and /d/s - are mapped onto their underlying phonemic counterparts. In 6 repetition priming experiments, participants responded to stimuli in 2 blocks of trials. Stimuli in the 1st block served as primes and those in the 2nd as targets. Primes and targets consisted of English words containing intervocalic /t/s and /d/s that, when produced casually, were flapped. In all 6 experiments, reaction times to target items were measured as a function of prime type. The results provide evidence for both surface and underlying form-based representations.