Context effects in bi-alphabetical word perception

The Serbo-Croatian language is transcribed in two partially overlapping alphabets. Some of the shared letters are pronounced differently in the two alphabets. Consequently, when the alphabet is not specified, some letter strings are phonologically ambiguous. Lexical decision and naming are much slower for such letter strings relative to appropriately controlled, phonologically unambiguous letter strings. Lexical decision and rapid naming experiments are reported, directed at contextually reducing this phonological ambiguity effect. For words, the phonological ambiguity effect was reduced by alphabetically related contexts in both tasks. Associatively related contexts also contributed to the effect's reduction in the rapid naming of words. For pseudowords, alphabet specification reduced the effect in lexical decision but not naming. Results were discussed in terms of their implications for an account of Serbo-Croatian word recognition.