Waiting for lexical access: Cochlear implants or severely degraded input lead listeners to process speech less incrementally

- During word recognition, many items compete from the earliest portions of input.
- We tested the dynamics of recognition in prelingually deaf cochlear implant users.
- They waited 200 msec to begin lexical access, with less competition from some words.
- This was also observed in normal listeners hearing highly degraded input.
- This questions immediate competition: CI users accrue input before accessing words.

Spoken language unfolds over time. Consequently, there are brief periods of ambiguity, when incomplete input can match many possible words. Typical listeners solve this problem by immediately activating multiple candidates which compete for recognition. In two experiments using the visual world paradigm, we examined real-time lexical competition in prelingually deaf cochlear implant (CI) users, and normal hearing (NH) adults listening to severely degraded speech. In Experiment 1, adolescent CI users and NH controls matched spoken words to arrays of pictures including pictures of the target word and phonological competitors. Eye-movements to each referent were monitored as a measure of how strongly that candidate was considered over time. Relative to NH controls, CI users showed a large delay in fixating any object, less competition from onset competitors (e.g., sandwich after hearing sandal), and increased competition from rhyme competitors (e.g., candle after hearing sandal). Experiment 2 observed the same pattern with NH listeners hearing highly degraded speech. These studies suggests that in contrast to all prior studies of word recognition in typical listeners, listeners recognizing words in severely degraded conditions can exhibit a substantively different pattern of dynamics, waiting to begin lexical access until substantial information has accumulated.