Lexical Memory in Auditory and Visual Modalities: The Case for a Common Mental Lexicon

Author: David B. Pisoni and Ellen E. Garber

Abstract:
This paper reports the results of a study designed to measure differences in familiarity for spoken and written words. Two sets of 450 English words were randomly selected from a computerized version of Webster's pocket dictionary. Four groups of subjects were presented with both lists of words for familiarity judgments. The first group (VV), saw all the words on each list presented visually; the second group (AA) heard all the words; the third and fourth group (AV,VA) received one list visually and another list auditorily. Subjects rated the familiarity of each word using a seven-point scale. Correlations of the familiarity scores across both lists and modalities were very high. the mean ratings were not significantly different for visual and auditory groups. The absence of modality differences suggests that familiarity effects occur late in the processing system where information from the input modality converges on a common lexical store in long-term memory.