Semantic access to embedded words? Electrophysiological and behavioral evidence from Spanish and English

Many multisyllabic words contain shorter words that are not semantic units, like the CAP in HANDICAP and the DURA (hard) in VERDURA (vegetable). The spaces between printed words identify word boundaries, but spurious identification of these embedded words is a potentially greater challenge for spoken language comprehension, a challenge that is handled by different mechanisms in different models of auditory word recognition. Subphonemic acoustic differences – subtle differences in pronunciation – often differentiate embedded words from genuine words. We examined semantic access to embedded words in two languages with different phonology by presenting carrier words followed by targets related to the embedded words and recording event-related potentials and lexical decision times in 34 Spanish/English bilinguals. No evidence of embedded word access was observed in brain activity or behavior, and this could not be attributed to subphonemic acoustic factors. The data place constraints on models of speech segmentation.

► Many multisyllabic words contain shorter words, like the BREW in HEBREW.
► Embedded words pose a challenge for the successful segmentation of speech.
► Embedded words may be more acoustically salient in different languages.
► We examined semantic access to embedded words in Spanish and English.
► ERPS and lexical decision times suggested no access to embedded words.