Massive auditory lexical decision: Investigating performance in noisy environments

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Pearl Lorentzen
  • Filip Nenadić
  • Matthew C. Kelley
  • Benjamin V. Tucker

• Although most auditory lexical decision experiments are performed in a laboratory setting, humans tend to communicate in uncontrolled and noisy environments. We investigated, indirectly, the impact of noise and other distractions on lexical processing. The present study used a subset of words from the Massive Auditory Lexical Decision (MALD) database and ran a series of shorter auditory lexical decision experiments at a busy science museum, the Telus World of Science – Edmonton, as part of a science outreach program. As expected, the surroundings provided many distractions, as well as a larger variety in age and other participant characteristics in comparison to a laboratory study. In this environment, speed and accuracy of responses were both reduced, but the same patterns of results as those obtained in laboratory settings emerged.

• Date created

  2019-03-26

• Subjects / Keywords

  • auditory lexical decision
  • various ages
  • realistic environment
  • lexical processing
  • phonetics

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-hrnv-sn79

• License

  Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International