Semantic information mediates visual attention during spoken word recognition in Chinese: Evidence from the printed-word version of the visual-world paradigm

In the present study, we investigated whether the activation of semantic information during spoken word recognition can mediate visual attention’s deployment to printed Chinese words. We used a visual-world paradigm with printed words, in which participants listened to a spoken target word embedded in a neutral spoken sentence while looking at a visual display of printed words. We examined whether a semantic competitor effect could be observed in the printed-word version of the visual-world paradigm. In Experiment 1, the relationship between the spoken target words and the printed words was manipulated so that they were semantically related (a semantic competitor), phonologically related (a phonological competitor), or unrelated (distractors). We found that the probability of fixations on semantic competitors was significantly higher than that of fixations on the distractors. In Experiment 2, the orthographic similarity between the spoken target words and their semantic competitors was manipulated to further examine whether the semantic competitor effect was modulated by orthographic similarity. We found significant semantic competitor effects regardless of orthographic similarity. Our study not only reveals that semantic information can affect visual attention, it also provides important new insights into the methodology employed to investigate the semantic processing of spoken words during spoken word recognition using the printed-word version of the visual-world paradigm.