The present study was designed to compare lexical decision latencies in visual and auditory modalities to three word types: (a) words that are inconsistent with two information sources, orthography and semantics (i.e., heterographic homophones such as bite/byte), (b) words that are inconsistent with one information source, semantics (i.e., homographic homophones such as bat), and (c) control words that are not inconsistent with any information source. Participants (N = 76) were randomly assigned to either the visual or auditory condition in which they judged the lexical status (word or nonword) of 180 words (60 heterographic homophones, 60 homographic homophones, and 60 control words) and 180 pronounceable nonsense word foils. Results differed significantly in the visual and auditory modalities. In visual lexical decision, homographic homophones were responded to faster than heterographic homophones or control words, which did not differ significantly. In auditory lexical decision, both homographic homophones and heterographic homophones were responded to faster than control words. Results are used to propose potential modifications to the Cooperative Division of Labor Model of Word Recognition (Harm & Seidenberg, 2004) to enable it to encompass both the visual and auditory modalities and account for the present results.
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