Lexical Bias in Cross-Dialect Word Recognition in Noise

Lexical bias is a well-known factor affecting phonological categorization in spoken word recognition. The current study examined the interaction between lexical bias and dialect variation in spoken word recognition in noise. The stimulus materials were real English words in two regional American English dialects. To manipulate lexical bias, target words in the word-competitor condition were selected so that predicted phonological confusions across dialects resulted in real English words. The target words in the nonword-competitor condition were selected so that predicted phonological confusions did not result in real English words. Word and vowel recognition performance were more accurate in the nonword-competitor condition than the word-competitor condition for both talker dialects. An examination of the responses to specific vowels revealed the role of dialect variation in eliciting this effect. For example, in the word-competitor condition, Northern / / was misidentified as /æ / significantly more often than chance, consistent with the Northern backing and lowering of //. Thus, when the predicted phonological confusions were real words, listeners could respond with either the target word or the confusable minimal pair. When the predicted phonological confusions were not real words, the listeners exhibited a lexical bias and responded with the target word. 1