Automatic Versus Strategic Effects of Phonology and Orthography on Auditory Lexical Access in Brain-Damaged Patients as a Function of Inter-Stimulus Interval

The influence of both phonological and orthographic information on auditory lexical access was examined in left- and right-hemisphere-damaged individuals using a lexical decision paradigm. Subjects were presented with prime-target pairs that were either phonologically related ( tooth-youth), orthographically related ( touch-couch), both phonologically and orthographically related ( blood-flood), or unrelated ( bill-tent), at two inter-stimulus intervals (ISI) – 100 ms and 750 ms – to tap more automatic versus more strategic processing. All groups demonstrated effects of orthography at both ISIs (facilitory at 100 ms ISI and inhibitory at 750 ms ISI), supporting the findings by Leonard and Baum (1997) that effects of orthography emerge independent of site of brain damage and suggesting that orthographic effects in auditory word recognition tend to be largely strategic. A facilitory effect of phonology was also found for all groups at both ISIs. The findings are discussed in relation to theories of lexical activation in brain-damaged individuals.