sentence comprehension in competing speech: dichotic sentence-word priming reveals hemispheric...

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Sentence comprehension incompeting speech: Dichotic sentence-word priming reveals hemisphericdifferences in auditory semanticprocessingJennifer Aydelott a , Dinah Baer-Henney b , Maciej Trzaskowski ac , Robert Leech a d & Frederic Dick aa Department of Psychological Sciences in the School ofScience , Birkbeck College, University of London , London , UKb Department of Linguistics , University of Potsdam , Potsdam ,Germanyc MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry ResearchCentre , Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London ,London , UKd C3NL, Division of Experimental Medicine , Imperial CollegeLondon , London , UKPublished online: 20 Oct 2011.

To cite this article: Jennifer Aydelott , Dinah Baer-Henney , Maciej Trzaskowski , Robert Leech& Frederic Dick (2012) Sentence comprehension in competing speech: Dichotic sentence-wordpriming reveals hemispheric differences in auditory semantic processing, Language and CognitiveProcesses, 27:7-8, 1108-1144, DOI: 10.1080/01690965.2011.589735

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Sentence comprehension in competing speech:

Dichotic sentence-word priming reveals hemispheric

differences in auditory semantic processing

Jennifer Aydelott1, Dinah Baer-Henney2,Maciej Trzaskowski1,3, Robert Leech1,4, and Frederic Dick1

1Department of Psychological Sciences in the School of Science,

Birkbeck College, University of London, London, UK2Department of Linguistics, University of Potsdam, Potsdam,

Germany3MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre,

Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, London, UK4C3NL, Division of Experimental Medicine, Imperial College London,

London, UK

This study examined the effects of competing speech on auditory semanticcomprehension using a dichotic sentence-word priming paradigm. Lexicaldecision performance for target words presented in spoken sentences wascompared in strongly and weakly biasing semantic contexts. Targets were eithercongruent or incongruent with the sentential bias. Sentences were presented toone auditory channel (right or left), either in isolation or with competingspeech produced by a single talker of the same gender presented simulta-neously. The competing speech signal was either presented in the same auditorychannel as the sentence context, or in a different auditory channel, and waseither meaningful (played forward) or unintelligible (time-reversed).

Correspondence should be addressed to Jennifer Aydelott, Department of Psychological

Sciences in the School of Science, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet Street,

London WC1E 7HX, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

This research was supported by grants from the Nuffield Foundation (SGS/01155/G), the

Medical Research Council (G0400341), and the Faculty of Science, Birkbeck, University of

London. The authors would like to thank Germaine Symons, Julia Carnevale, Richard Abbott,

and Katie Alcock for collecting pilot data for this project.

LANGUAGE AND COGNITIVE PROCESSES

2012, 27 (7/8), 1108�1144

# 2012 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

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http://www.psypress.com/lcp

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01690965.2011.589735

Biasing contexts presented in isolation facilitated responses to congruenttargets and inhibited responses to incongruent targets, relative to a neutralbaseline. Facilitation priming was reduced or eliminated by competing speechpresented in the same auditory channel, supporting previous findings thatsemantic activation is highly sensitive to the intelligibility of the context signal.Competing speech presented in a different auditory channel affected facilita-tion priming differentially depending upon ear of presentation, suggestinghemispheric differences in the processing of the attended and competingsignals. Results were consistent with previous claims of a right ear advantagefor meaningful speech, as well as with visual word recognition findingsimplicating the left hemisphere in the generation of semantic predictions andthe right hemisphere in the integration of newly encountered words into thesentence-level meaning. Unlike facilitation priming, inhibition was relativelyrobust to the energetic and informational masking effects of competing speechand was not influenced by the strength of the contextual bias or themeaningfulness of the competing signal, supporting a two-process model ofsentence priming in which inhibition reflects later-stage, expectancy-drivenstrategic processes that may benefit from perceptual reanalysis after initialsemantic activation.

Keywords: Auditory language comprehension; Semantic priming; Hemispheric

asymmetries; Lexical access; Multitalker environments; Competing speech.

A substantial body of research has documented the adverse effects of a

multitalker environment on speech intelligibility, as well as the factors that

determine the successful identification of words and sentences in the presence

of competing speech (Arons, 1992; Bronkhorst, 2000; Brungart, 2001; Wood

& Cowan, 1995). In addition to the energetic masking effects imposed by

speech as a noise source, a competing speech signal introduces informational

masking due to demands on selective attention and auditory segregation

as well as through phonological and semantic interference. Nevertheless,

listeners are able to make use of the contextual information present in the

attended signal to mitigate the masking effects of competing speech. The

presence of a semantic bias in a spoken sentence context substantially

improves the identification of compatible words in a multitalker babble

(Bilger, Nuetzel, Rabinowitz, & Rzeczkowski, 1984; Hutcherson, Dirks, &

Morgan, 1979; Kalikow, Stevens, & Elliott, 1977), suggesting that higher-

level language processes play a significant role in the identification of speech-

in-speech.The influence of semantic context on spoken word recognition has been

explored extensively in the psycholinguistics literature. Studies of contextual

priming have demonstrated that words that are congruent with a meaningful

context (a semantically related word or biasing sentence) are recognised

more quickly than incongruent words in tasks such as lexical decision

(word/nonword judgment) in both the visual and auditory modalities

(Fischler & Bloom, 1979, 1980; McNamara, 2005; Meyer & Schvaneveldt,

AUDITORY SENTENCE PRIMING IN COMPETING SPEECH 1109

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1971; Neely, 1991; Schuberth & Eimas, 1977; Stanovich & West, 1983). The

influence of sentence-level meaning on lexical decision performance has been

attributed to a combination of comprehension-specific processes, such as the

activation of compatible features in semantic memory (Kutas & Federmeier,

2000; Schwanenflugel & Lacount, 1988; Schwanenflugel & Shoben, 1985;

Schwanenflugel & White, 1991; Traxler & Foss, 2000), and more general

task-related strategies that are dependent upon the output of semantic

processing but are not necessarily specific to language comprehension

(Ratcliff & McKoon, 1981; Stanovich & West, 1983; West & Stanovich,

1982). In contrast to offline measures of speech intelligibility, such as

accuracy in repetition or written identification tasks, auditory contextual

priming provides a measure of speed of processing of word-level information

that is highly sensitive under ideal listening conditions. However, the effect of

an adverse auditory environment on the online processing of sentence-level

meaning has received little attention in the literature.The present study brings together parallel findings from speech recogni-

tion and psycholinguistics by exploring the effects of a competing speech

signal on auditory contextual priming. The aim of the study is to examine the

different types of interference imposed by a speech-in-speech environment,

and the ways in which these factors affect the activation of representations in

semantic memory and the use of semantic information in the service of task

performance.

Rationale and predictions

As noted above, a competing speech signal has the potential to interfere with

spoken language comprehension in several ways. First, competing speech

imposes energetic masking on the attended speech signal due to the spectral

and temporal overlap between the two signals, thereby reducing the

intelligibility of the attended signal (Brungart, 2001). This effect is

substantially reduced when the attended and competing signals are presented

to separate auditory channels (Cherry, 1953; Freyman, Balakrishnan, &

Helfer, 2001). Further, competing speech produces informational masking to

varying degrees depending on the acoustic similarity of the attended and

competing signals (e.g., competing speech produced by a talker of the same

gender produces greater interference than competing speech produced by a

talker of a different gender; Brungart, 2001). The meaningful content of the

competing signal also contributes to informational masking. For example,

competing speech in a listener’s native language is a more effective masker

than a foreign language (Garcia Lecumberri & Cooke, 2006; Van Engen &

Bradlow, 2007), and competing multitalker babble containing high frequency

1110 AYDELOTT ET AL.

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words has a greater effect on word recognition than babble containing low

frequency words (Boulenger, Hoen, Ferragne, Pellegrino, & Meunier, 2010).

In addition, competing speech may have differential effects depending on the

ear of presentation of the attended and competing signals. Dichotic listening

studies have revealed a right-ear advantage (REA) for the identification of

speech stimuli, which is generally attributed to the preponderance of

contralateral neural connections from the right ear to the left auditory

cortex, in combination with left hemisphere specialisation for speech

processing (Kimura, 1961; Studdert-Kennedy & Shankweiler, 1970; Wada

& Rasmussen, 1960; cf. Scott, Blank, Rosen, & Wise, 2000). Thus, a

competing speech signal presented to the right ear may produce greater

interference than the same signal presented to the left ear.These potential sources of interference have particular implications for

spoken word recognition in a semantic context. Priming studies have

demonstrated that a biasing sentence context affects lexical decision

response times (RTs) to target words, such that words that are congruent

with the sentence meaning are facilitated and words that are incongruent

with the sentence meaning are inhibited, relative to a neutral baseline

(Aydelott & Bates, 2004; Stanovich & West, 1983). The facilitation of

congruent words in a biasing sentence has been described as reflecting the

activation of a set of features in the semantic system (Schwanenflugel &

LaCount, 1988; cf. Kutas & Federmeier, 2000), and is highly sensitive to

the intelligibility of the speech signal (Aydelott & Bates, 2004). Thus, the

activation of semantic information is likely to be particularly vulnerable to

the energetic masking effect of competing speech on an auditory sentence

context, resulting in reduced facilitation effects. On the other hand, the

inhibition of lexical decision responses to words that are incongruent with

the sentence meaning has been attributed to task-specific strategies, as

targets that are inconsistent with the contextual bias are perceived as

anomalous and tend to trigger a ‘‘nonword’’ response, resulting in slower

RTs when the target is a real word (Neely & Keefe, 1989; Ratcliff &

McKoon, 1981; Stanovich & West, 1983; West & Stanovich, 1982; but cf.

Plaut & Booth, 2000, 2006). Inhibition effects are associated with increased

demands on attentional resources and are reduced or eliminated under

challenging listening conditions in which intelligibility is relatively un-

affected, such as temporal compression (Aydelott & Bates, 2004). Thus, the

increased demands on auditory segregation imposed by a competing

speech signal with similar acoustic properties to the attended signal are

likely to interfere with the inhibition of incongruent targets, particularly if

the competing signal is meaningful. In addition, the extent of the

interference produced by competing speech may also depend upon the


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strength of the contextual bias. The support provided by a strongly

constraining semantic context in which the target word is highly

predictable substantially improves target intelligibility when sentences are

presented in a multitalker babble (Bilger et al., 1984; Hutcherson et al.,

1979; Kalikow et al., 1977). The masking effect of competing speech may

therefore be less pronounced for sentences with a strong bias in favour of a

particular word.

Design

The present study tested these predictions using a modified version of the

auditory sentence priming paradigm. Participants made lexical decision

responses to spoken word targets (e.g., desk) presented in three auditory

sentence context conditions: strong bias, in which the congruent target was

the expected completion of the sentence (e.g., In the office, the computer is on

my . . .); weak bias, in which the congruent target was one of many plausible

completions (e.g., They took all of the furniture in the office except for the . . .);and neutral, in which there was no semantic bias (The next item is . . .).Targets were either congruent or incongruent with the biasing contexts so

that facilitation and inhibition effects could be compared. Both the biasing

and neutral contexts were presented dichotically to a single auditory channel

and were played either in isolation or with competing speech produced by a

single talker of the same gender as the talker who produced the context

stimuli.

In all competing speech conditions, the critical experimental questions

were: (1) whether the competing speech signal significantly reduced the

facilitation of congruent targets and/or the inhibition of incongruent targets,

relative to conditions in which the attended sentence contexts were presented

in isolation; and (2) whether this reduction was modulated by the contextual

strength of the attended sentence. Thus, the presence or absence of a

competing speech signal and the strength of the contextual bias were treated

as within-subjects variables in a repeated measures design.

The spatial location and information content of the competing signal were

manipulated independently as between-subjects variables. The following

factors were examined:

Energetic masking/binaural release from masking

The competing speech signal was either mixed with the sentence context

and presented in the same auditory channel to maximise its energetic

masking effect, or presented in a different auditory channel from the

sentence context to maximise the potential benefit from binaural spatial


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unmasking. Energetic masking was expected to reduce facilitation effects forcongruent targets, particularly in weakly biasing sentence contexts.

Meaningfulness of competing speech

The competing speech masker was either played forward or time-reversed.

Time-reversed speech has similar spectral and temporal properties to

forward speech but lacks semantic content. Forward speech was expectedto increase the informational masking effect of the competing signal, placing

greater demands on attentional resources relative to time-reversed speech,

and was therefore expected to have a greater effect on the inhibition of

incongruent targets. Forward competing speech was also expected to reduce

facilitation due to the activation of incompatible representations in semantic

memory.

Ear of presentation

The competing signal was either presented to the right or to the left

auditory channel. Meaningful competing speech presented to the right

auditory channel was expected to be more disruptive than meaningful speech

presented to the left channel, due to the REA for intelligible speech observed

in previous studies.

In Experiment 1, all competing speech signals were presented at a

moderate signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 0 dB. A more demanding SNR of�12 dB is used in Experiment 2.

EXPERIMENT 1

Method

Stimuli

All targets, sentence contexts, and competing speech segments were

recorded onto digital audio tape in an Industrial Acoustics Corporation

403-A audiometric chamber with a Tascam DA-P1 tape recorder and a

Sennheiser ME65/K6 supercardioid microphone and pre-amp at gain levels

between �6 and �12 dB. The recorded stimuli were transferred via digital-

to-digital sampling onto a Macintosh G4 computer with a Digidesign audio

card using ProTools LE software at a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz with a 16-bitquantisation. The waveform of each target item, sentence context, and

competing speech segment was edited and saved in its own mono audio file in

WAV format for subsequent manipulation using Praat software (Boersma,

2001).


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Target items

Word targets were 60 one-syllable English words (see Appendix) contain-

ing three to five phonemes (mean �3.30, SD�0.65) with a mean duration

of 643 ms (SD�87), a mean Kucera-Francis print frequency of 139

(SD�104; Kucera & Francis, 1967), a mean London-Lund spoken

frequency of 17 (SD�25; Brown, 1984), and a mean concreteness rating

of 536 (SD�87; all values obtained from the MRC Psycholinguistic

Database; Coltheart, 1981). To avoid possible morphological and morpho-

phonological constraints on determiners (a/an, the), mass nouns (e.g., blood,

dust) were excluded, and all targets were consonant-initial. Nonword

distractor targets consisted of 60 phonologically permissible one-syllable

nonsense items that did not differ significantly from the word targets in

terms of number of phonemes (mean �3.38, SD�0.58) or duration in ms

(mean �666, SD�112). All target items were produced by a male native

speaker of Southern British English, and the resulting waveforms were scaled

to a nominal average intensity level of 72 dB in Praat.

Sentence contexts

Two sentence contexts were created for each target word: one with a

strong semantic bias in favour of the target, and one with a weak semantic

bias in favour of the target (see Appendix). The predictability of the intended

target word in each of these sentence contexts was then evaluated by 22

native speakers of British English using the cloze procedure. Target words

had a mean cloze probability of 94% (SD�7%) in strong bias contexts and

28% (SD�19%) in weak bias contexts. Strong and weak bias sentences did

not differ significantly in number of syllables (strong: mean �10.03,

SD�2.70; weak: mean �9.98, SD�2.80), duration in ms (strong:

mean �2036, SD�477; weak: mean �2065, SD�470), or number of

content words (strong: mean �3.65, SD�1.31; weak: mean �3.40,

SD�1.17); however, strong bias sentences contained significantly more

words that were semantically related to the target item than weak bias

sentences, strong: mean �1.15, SD�0.61; weak: mean �0.87, SD�0.83;

paired t(59) �3.43, pB.01. A sentence context without a semantic bias in

favour of a particular target (The next item is . . .) served as the neutral

baseline.

Distractor sentence contexts were also generated for the nonword targets.

These were strongly or weakly biased in favour of words that were not

included in the target set (cloze probability of expected word, strong:

mean �71%, SD�24%; weak: mean �41%, SD�31%), although they

were always presented with nonword targets. Distractor sentence contexts

did not differ significantly from test sentence contexts in number of syllables


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(strong: mean �10.13, SD�2.83; weak: mean �9.73, SD�2.67), durationin ms (strong: mean �2188, SD�513; weak: mean �1995, SD�485),

or number of content words (strong: mean �3.80, SD�1.39; weak:

mean �3.47, SD�1.23).

All sentence contexts were produced by a female native speaker of

Southern British English and the resulting waveforms were scaled to a

nominal average intensity level of 72 dB in Praat.

Competing speech

A passage from the economics textbook Profit Patterns (Slywotzky, 1999)

was read aloud by a different female native speaker of Southern BritishEnglish. Segments of the same duration as each of the sentence contexts were

excised at random from this recorded passage, with onset and offset cuts

made at zero crossings of the waveform. These excised portions were scaled

to a nominal average intensity level of 72 dB in Praat.

Dichotic sentence stimuli

For each of the sentence contexts, a stereo sound file was generated with

the sentence waveform inserted into the left channel and silence in the right

channel. These stereo files served as the isolation condition.

A time-reversed version of each of the excised competing speech segments

was created in Praat. Separate dichotic sentence stimuli were generated forforward and time-reversed competing speech segments. Each competing

speech segment was combined with its duration-matched sentence context in

the left channel of the stereo sound file (same channel competing speech

condition), or inserted into the right channel (different channel competing

speech condition).

All stimuli (dichotic sentence contexts and targets) were converted in

SoundEdit 16 to System 7 format for presentation via SuperLab software.

Participants

Eighty right-handed native speakers of British English between the ages of

18 and 40 were paid for their participation. Individuals with a history ofhearing impairment or neurological illness were excluded from participating.

Procedure

Sentence contexts were paired with word targets in five semantic bias

conditions: congruent strong (target was an expected completion of a strong

bias context), congruent weak (target was an expected completion of a weak

bias context), neutral (target was presented in a neutral context), incongruent


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strong (target was an unexpected completion of a strong bias context), and

incongruent weak (target was an unexpected completion of a weak bias

context). For the incongruent conditions, the same sentence contexts were

used as in the congruent conditions, paired with different (unexpected)

targets. Thus, the sentence contexts and targets served as their own controls,

as the same test items were used in both the congruent and incongruent

conditions. In each of the semantic bias conditions, the sentence context was

either presented in isolation, or with competing speech. For each participant,

each context and target appeared only once during the experiment, but the

condition in which each context and target appeared was counterbalanced

across participants. Thus, all items were presented in all conditions, and all

participants received all items, obviating the need to conduct separate

analyses by item (McNamara, 2005). Semantic bias (congruent strong,

congruent weak, neutral, incongruent strong, or incongruent weak) and

competing signal (isolation versus competing speech) served as within-

subjects variables. The type of competing signal (forward versus time-

reversed speech), the auditory channel in which the competing signal was

presented with respect to the context sentence (same channel versus different

channel), and the ear of presentation of the context sentence (left versus

right) served as between-subjects variables. Nonwords were presented in the

same context conditions as word targets. Target words and nonwords were

always presented binaurally, with no competing speech.

The experiment was conducted on a Macintosh PowerPC G4 eMac

computer using SuperLab software. All auditory stimuli were presented

through Sennheiser HD 25-1 headphones in an Industrial Acoustics

Corporation 403-A audiometric chamber. Ear of presentation of the sentence

context was determined for each participant by the placement of the

reversible headphones, such that the left channel (i.e., the channel containing

the sentence context) was positioned over either the left or the right ear. The

RTs and accuracy were recorded in SuperLab using a Cedrus RB-730

response box. Participants were instructed to listen to the sentence context

and target item and to indicate whether the target was a real word in English

or not by pressing the green button (yes) or the red button (no) on the

response box. Participants were informed that the sentence context would

sometimes be presented with competing speech and were directed to ignore

the competing speech and pay attention to the sentence context. The order of

the buttons on the response box (i.e., green on the left or right) was

counterbalanced across participants. Participants were instructed to use the

index finger of their dominant hand to make a response, to rest their finger

between the two buttons after each trial, and to respond as quickly and as

accurately as possible as both their response times and accuracy would be

measured.


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Results

One participant responded correctly to fewer than 60% of word targets in

one of the experimental conditions and was excluded from analysis. For the

remaining participants, harmonic mean RTs were calculated for correct

responses to word targets in each experimental condition. The harmonic

mean is based on the inverse transformation, which is relatively robust to

outliers in lexical decision RT data (Ratcliff, 1993; cf. Tyler, Randall, &

Marslen-Wilson, 2002). This value was divided by the proportion of correct

responses in each experimental condition to compute the inverse efficiency

(IE) score, a combined measure of RT and accuracy that adjusts for speed-

accuracy trade-offs (Townsend & Ashby, 1983).The effect of competing speech on performance in the neutral baseline

condition was tested in a four-way ANOVA performed on the IE scores, with

competing signal (isolation versus competing speech) as a within-subjects

variable and type of competing signal (forward versus time-reversed speech),

channel of presentation of competing signal (same or different channel from

sentence contexts), and ear of presentation of sentence contexts (left versus

right) as between-subjects variables. The results revealed no significant main

effect of competing signal on neutral IE scores, F(1, 71) �1.54, p�.22, and

no significant interactions.

The IE scores were used to calculate the proportion priming for targets

in each of the semantic bias conditions relative to the neutral baseline (the

difference between the IE scores in the bias and neutral conditions,

divided by the neutral IE score; cf. Burke & Yee, 1984; Tyler et al., 2002).

Mean proportion priming scores across experimental conditions are shown

for congruent targets in Table 1 and for incongruent targets in Table 2.

Separate analyses examined the effects of competing speech in the same

auditory channel as the attended sentence context (reported as Experiment

1A, N�39), and competing speech in a different auditory channel from

the attended sentence context (reported as Experiment 1B, N�40) on

facilitation and inhibition priming. As none of the critical predictions

relied on a direct comparison of the relative magnitudes of facilitation and

inhibition priming and to simplify the interpretation of the observed

effects, responses to congruent and incongruent targets were analysed

separately.

Experiment 1A: Competing speech in the same channel

Four-way analyses of variance (ANOVAs) with bias strength (strong

versus weak) and competing signal (isolation versus competing speech) as

within-subjects variables and type of competing signal (forward versus


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TABLE 1Mean (and standard error) proportion priming for congruent targets in biasing

contexts relative to neutral baseline in Experiment 1 (0 dB SNR), based on inverseefficiency scores

Type of

competing signal

Channel of

presentation

(competing

signal)

Ear of

presentation

(context)

Presence of

competing signal

Bias

strength

Proportion

priming

Forward Same Left Isolation Strong �0.18 (0.033)

Weak �0.13 (0.034)

Competing speech Strong �0.06 (0.031)

Weak �0.02 (0.028)

Right Isolation Strong �0.14 (0.034)

Weak �0.09 (0.036)


Weak 0.01 (0.030)

Different Left Isolation Strong �0.18 (0.033)

Weak �0.09 (0.034)


Weak 0.01 (0.028)


Weak �0.01 (0.034)


Weak �0.05 (0.028)

Time-reversed Same Left Isolation Strong �0.16 (0.033)

Weak �0.10 (0.034)


Weak �0.02 (0.028)


Weak �0.05 (0.034)


Weak �0.03 (0.028)


Weak �0.07 (0.034)


Weak �0.10 (0.028)


Weak �0.05 (0.034)


Weak �0.03 (0.028)

Note: Values less than zero reflect facilitation.


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time-reversed speech) and ear of presentation (left versus right) as

between-subjects variables were conducted separately for congruent and

incongruent targets.

TABLE 2Mean (and standard error) proportion priming for incongruent targets in biasing

contexts relative to neutral baseline in Experiment 1 (0 dB SNR), based on inverseefficiency scores

Type of

competing signal

Channel of

presentation

(competing

signal)

Ear of

presentation

(context)

Presence of

competing signal

Bias

strength

Proportion

priming

Forward Same Left Isolation Strong 0.22 (0.053)

Weak 0.18 (0.074)

Competing speech Strong 0.10 (0.054)

Weak 0.10 (0.056)

Right Isolation Strong 0.24 (0.056)

Weak 0.34 (0.078)


Weak 0.15 (0.059)

Different Left Isolation Strong 0.14 (0.053)

Weak 0.16 (0.074)


Weak 0.13 (0.056)


Weak 0.19 (0.074)


Weak 0.16 (0.056)

Time-reversed Same Left Isolation Strong 0.13 (0.053)

Weak 0.10 (0.074)


Weak 0.06 (0.056)


Weak 0.24 (0.074)


Weak 0.12 (0.056)


Weak 0.16 (0.074)


Weak 0.10 (0.056)


Weak 0.13 (0.074)


Weak 0.24 (0.056)

Note: Values greater than zero reflect inhibition.


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Congruent targets. Results revealed significant main effects of both bias

strength, F(1, 35) �29.85, pB.0001, and competing signal, F(1, 35) �15.20,

pB.0001. Thus, strong contexts produced greater facilitation than weak

contexts, and facilitation of congruent targets was reduced when sentence

contexts were presented in competing speech relative to isolation. These data

are plotted in Figure 1. There were no other significant main effects and no

-0.3

-0.25

-0.2

-0.15

-0.1

-0.05

0

weak biasstrong bias


Pro

port

ion

Prim

ing

isolation competing speech

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

Pro

port

ion

Prim

ing

* *

* *


Figure 1. Effect of competing speech presented in the same auditory channel as the sentence

context on the facilitation of congruent targets (top panel) and inhibition of incongruent targets

(bottom panel) in Experiment 1 (0 dB SNR). Values reflect proportion priming relative to the

neutral baseline based on inverse efficiency scores. In this and subsequent figures, * � significant

comparison, pB.05; �� trend, pB.10; ns �comparison not significant.


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interactions. One-sample t-tests were conducted to establish whether signifi-cant facilitation relative to the neutral baseline was obtained in all

experimental conditions. Significant facilitation emerged for sentences pre-

sented in isolation for both strong, t(38)��9.11, pB.0001, and weak

contexts, t(38)��5.68, pB.0001, as well as for strong contexts presented

in competing speech, t(38)��3.74, p B.001; however, no significant

facilitation emerged for weak contexts presented in competing speech,

t(38)��0.91, p�.37.

Incongruent targets. A significant main effect of competing signal, F(1,

35) �6.15, pB.05, emerged, such that inhibition of incongruent targets was

reduced when sentence contexts were presented in competing speech relative

to the same contexts presented in isolation. One-sample t-tests revealed that

significant inhibition emerged for sentence contexts presented in isolation,strong: t(38) �6.04, pB.0001; weak: t(38) �4.77, pB.0001, and in

competing speech, strong: t(38) �4.28, pB.0001; weak: t(38) �4.02,

pB.0001. However, the main effect of bias strength (strong versus weak)

did not approach significance, F(1, 35) �0.10, p�.76. Thus, unlike

facilitation effects, inhibition of incongruent targets was not significantly

influenced by the strength of the semantic bias imposed by the context.

These data are plotted in Figure 1. A significant interaction of bias

strength�ear of presentation, F(1, 35) �5.35, pB.05, emerged. However,when this interaction was examined in separate three-way ANOVAs (bias

strength�competing signal�type of competing signal) conducted for each

ear of presentation, the main effect of bias strength did not reach

significance in either condition, left ear: F(1, 18) �2.62, p�.12; right

ear: F(1, 17) �2.74, p�.12. There were no other significant main effects or

interactions.

Experiment 1B: Competing speech in a different channel

Four-way ANOVAs with bias strength and competing signal as within-

subjects variables and type of competing signal and ear of presentation as



Congruent targets. Results revealed a significant interaction of ear of

presentation�competing signal, F(1, 36) �5.25, pB.05, and a marginally

significant interaction of ear of presentation�competing signal�type of

competing signal, F(1, 36) �3.86, p�.057. These findings suggest thathemispheric processing differences may have contributed to the observed

effects. To clarify the nature of these interactions, separate three-way

ANOVAs with bias strength and competing signal as within-subjects

variables and ear of presentation as a between-subjects variable were


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conducted for each type of competing signal (forward and time-reversed

competing speech, N �20 in each group). For the sake of brevity, ear of

presentation effects are described as reflecting processing in the contralateral

hemisphere, which receives the preponderance of the auditory input,

although perceptual processing in the auditory modality also reflects

ipsilateral input from a minority of ascending pathways.

Forward competing speech. The main effect of bias strength was

significant, F(1, 18) �24.15, pB.0001, such that greater facilitation was

obtained in strong contexts than in weak contexts. A marginally significant

main effect of competing signal also emerged, F(1, 18) �3.51, p�.077,

indicating that facilitation was reduced by competing speech. In addition,

there was a significant interaction of ear of presentation�competing signal,

F(1, 18) �6.56, pB.05, suggesting that the effect of forward competing

speech on facilitation differed depending upon whether the attended sentence

context was presented to the left or the right ear. Paired t-tests revealed that,

when the sentence context was presented to the left ear (right hemisphere)

forward competing speech significantly reduced facilitation for both strong,

t(9) �3.71, pB.05, and weak contexts, t(9) �2.74, pB.05, relative to the

isolation (no competing speech) condition. However, when the sentence

context was presented to the right ear (left hemisphere), forward competing

speech had no significant effect on facilitation relative to the isolation

condition, strong contexts: t(9) �0.17, p�.87; weak contexts: t(9) ��0.64,

p�.54. These data are plotted in Figure 2.

Time-reversed competing speech. A significant competing signal�bias

strength�ear of presentation interaction emerged, F(1, 18) �5.30, pB.05.

Separate two-way ANOVAs were conducted for each ear of presentation.

Results revealed a significant main effect of bias strength for sentences

presented to the left ear (right hemisphere), F(1, 9) �12.19, pB.01, and a

marginally significant main effect of bias strength for sentences presented to

the right ear (left hemisphere), F(1, 9) �4.95, p�.053. The main effect of

competing signal was not significant, nor was there a significant competing

signal�bias strength interaction for either ear of presentation. These data

are plotted in Figure 2.

Incongruent targets. There were no significant main effects or interac-

tions. One-sample t-tests revealed that significant inhibition emerged for

sentence contexts presented in isolation, strong: t(39) �7.29, pB.0001;

weak: t(39) �5.55, pB.0001, and in competing speech, strong: t(39) �6.27, p B.0001; weak: t(39) �5.29, pB.0001. These data are plotted in

Figure 3.


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Discussion

When presented in isolation, biasing sentence contexts both facilitated

responses to congruent targets and inhibited responses to incongruent

targets, relative to the neutral baseline. Significant facilitation was obtained

for congruent targets in both strong and weak contexts, with greater

facilitation priming emerging for targets in strong contexts than in weak

contexts. This result is consistent with previous studies showing enhanced

-0.3

-0.25

-0.2

-0.15

-0.1

-0.05

0

LH Sentence RH Sentence


Pro

port

ion

Prim

ing


-0.3

-0.25

-0.2

-0.15

-0.1

-0.05

0

Pro

port

ion

Prim

ing

ns ns * *

ns ns ns ns

weak biasstrong bias weak biasstrong bias

weak biasstrong bias weak biasstrong bias


Figure 2. Effect of forward (top panel) and time-reversed (bottom panel) competing speech in

a different auditory channel from the sentence context, presented to the left hemisphere/right ear

(left plots) or the right hemisphere/left ear (right plots) on facilitation of congruent targets in

Experiment 1 (0 dB SNR).


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facilitation of congruent targets in the presence of a strong semantic bias,

which has been attributed to the degree of constraint imposed by the context:

whereas both strongly and weakly biasing contexts activate compatible

features in semantic memory, strongly biasing contexts also limit the set of

plausible completions, such that compatible words are more easily integrated

(Federmeier, 2007; Wlotko & Federmeier, 2007). Thus, as in the present

study, both high- and low-predictability congruent targets are facilitated,

with additional priming emerging for high-predictability targets. In contrast,

inhibition of incongruent targets was obtained in both strong and weak

contexts, with no difference in the magnitude of inhibition priming due to the

strength of the contextual bias. This suggests that the task-specific strategies

that contribute to the inhibition effect rely upon broad expectancies

generated in response to the activation of semantic features and are not

sensitive to contextual constraint.

Competing speech presented in the same auditory channel as the sentence

context reduced the facilitation of congruent targets in strong contexts and

eliminated the facilitation of congruent targets in weak contexts, supporting

the prediction that sentences with a strong semantic bias would be relatively

robust to reductions in intelligibility introduced by competing speech at this

SNR. The inhibition of incongruent targets was significantly reduced but not

eliminated in both strong and weak contexts, and there was no influence of

bias strength on the effect of competing speech on inhibition priming. Thus,

as in previous studies, inhibition priming was relatively preserved in

conditions of low intelligibility. The meaningfulness of the competing signal

did not affect the pattern of results for facilitation or inhibition priming.

Competing speech presented in a different auditory channel from the

sentence context had differing effects on facilitation depending upon the ear

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

Pro

port

ion

Prim

ing


ns ns


Figure 3. Effect of competing speech in a different auditory channel from the sentence context

on inhibition of incongruent targets in Experiment 1 (0 dB SNR).


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of presentation of the context and the intelligibility of the competing signal.Forward speech significantly reduced facilitation when the attended sentence

context was presented to the LE/RH, but had no effect when the attended

context was presented to the RE/LH. As predicted, this result is consistent

with the right ear advantage for intelligible speech observed in previous

studies (Kimura, 1961; Studdert-Kennedy & Shankweilier, 1970; Wada &

Rasmussen, 1960): a meaningful speech signal presented to the RE/LH

interferes with the processing of a sentence context presented to the LE/RH

due to the preferential processing of intelligible speech in the LH (cf. Scottet al., 2000), whereas no such interference is obtained when the context is

presented to the RE/LH. This effect emerged even though participants were

instructed to focus on the sentence context, whereas previous studies have

demonstrated that selective attention can reduce or reverse the REA

(Hugdahl, 2005). Time-reversed speech did not reduce facilitation for either

ear of presentation, indicating that it is the meaningful content of the speech

signal that produces interference, rather than the increased demands imposed

on spatial selective attention.In contrast to facilitation priming, the inhibition of incongruent targets

was unaffected by competing speech in a different auditory channel,

irrespective of competing signal intelligibility or ear of presentation. This

finding is inconsistent with the prediction that the task-dependent strategies

underlying inhibition priming incur a processing cost and should therefore be

vulnerable under conditions of increased attentional demand. However, it is

possible that the moderate SNR of 0 dB in this experiment was not

sufficiently demanding to interfere with strategic processing. This may alsoaccount for the failure of selective attention to reverse the REA observed for

facilitation priming in competing speech, as the competing signal may not

have induced focused attention on the sentence context at this intensity level.

Alternatively, the presentation of the attended and competing signals at the

same intensity level may have interfered with the perceptual isolation of

the two signals, as interaural intensity differences have been shown to

contribute to auditory segregation in multitalker environments, even when

the target signal is presented at a lower intensity level than the masker(Brungart, 2001). These possibilities are explored in Experiment 2, which

examines the effect of competing speech presented at a more demanding

SNR of �12 dB on auditory sentence priming using the same materials as in

Experiment 1.

EXPERIMENT 2

Experiment 2 tested the effect of a more challenging SNR on the processing

of words in a semantic context in the presence of competing speech.


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Competing speech presented at an SNR of �12 dB was expected to have anincreased masking effect when presented in the same auditory channel as the

attended signal relative to an SNR of 0 dB, resulting in larger reductions in

both facilitation and inhibition priming. Competing speech presented in a

different auditory channel was expected to place greater demands on

selective attention at the �12 dB than the 0 dB SNR, resulting in reduced

inhibition priming. However, the predictions for facilitation priming in this

condition were less straightforward. Whereas the increased demands of the

more challenging SNR might interfere with contextual facilitation, this SNRcondition was also expected to increase the focus of attention on the attended

signal and to provide an additional interaural difference cue to aid in the

separation of the attended and competing signals. These factors may serve to

override the REA for intelligible speech, eliminating the interference effect

for meaningful competing speech presented to the right auditory channel.

Method

Stimuli

All stimuli were identical to those used in Experiment 1, with the

exception that all sentence contexts (biasing and neutral) were scaled to a

nominal average intensity of 60 dB in Praat (as opposed to 72 dB as in

Experiment 1).

Participants

Eighty native speakers of British English between the ages of 18 and 40

were paid for their participation. Individuals with a history of hearing

impairment or neurological illness were excluded from participating.

Procedure

The procedure was identical to that used in Experiment 1.

Results

Five participants responded correctly to fewer than 60% of word targets in

one or more of the experimental conditions and were excluded from analysis.

Data from two other participants could not be used due to equipment failure.

As in Experiment 1, for the remaining participants, the harmonic mean RT

was calculated for correct responses to word targets in each experimentalcondition, and this value was divided by the proportion of correct responses

in each experimental condition to compute the IE score. A four-way ANOVA

performed on IE scores in the neutral baseline condition, with competing

signal as a within-subjects variable and type of competing signal, channel of


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presentation, and ear of presentation as between-subjects variables, revealedno significant main effect of competing signal on neutral IE scores, F(1,

65) �0.94, p�.34, and no significant interactions. As in Experiment 1, IE

scores were used to calculate the proportion priming for targets in each of the

semantic bias conditions relative to the neutral baseline. Mean proportion

priming scores across experimental conditions are shown for congruent

targets in Table 3, and for incongruent targets in Table 4. Separate analyses

examined the effects of competing speech in the same auditory channel as

the attended sentence context (reported as Experiment 2A, N�37) andcompeting speech in a different auditory channel from the attended sentence

context (reported as Experiment 2B, N�36) on facilitation and inhibition

priming.

Experiment 2A: Competing speech in the same channel





Congruent targets. Results revealed significant main effects of both bias

strength, F(1, 33) �4.52, p B.05, and competing signal, F(1, 33) �29.29,

pB.0001. Thus, greater facilitation was obtained for strong contexts than

weak contexts, and competing speech reduced facilitation relative to the

isolation condition. In addition, a significant bias strength�competing

signal interaction was obtained, F(1, 33) �15.52, pB.001, such that

significantly greater priming emerged for strong contexts than for weakcontexts in the isolation condition, paired t(36) ��4.79, pB.0001, whereas

no significant difference in priming between strong and weak contexts

emerged in competing speech, paired t(36) �0.66, p�.50. These data are

plotted in Figure 4. One-sample t-tests revealed that significant priming

was obtained for both strong, t(36) ��7.21, pB.0001, and weak,

t(36) ��4.33, pB.0001 contexts presented in isolation, and that priming

was eliminated for contexts presented in competing speech, strong:

t(36) �1.05, p �.30; weak: t(36) �0.41, p�.68. No other significant maineffects or interactions were observed.

Incongruent targets. A significant main effect of competing signal was

obtained, F(1, 33) �32.98, pB.0001, such that smaller inhibition priming

emerged for contexts presented in competing speech than in isolation. Thesedata are plotted in Figure 4. One-sample t-tests revealed highly significant

inhibitory priming for contexts presented in isolation, strong: t(36) �7.36,

pB.0001; weak: t(36) �6.44, pB.0001, and for strong contexts presented in

competing speech, t(36) �2.09, pB.05. Although significant inhibition was


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not obtained in weak contexts, t(36) �1.13, p�.27, the interaction of

competing signal�bias strength did not approach significance, F(1,

33) �0.26, p�.61. There were no other significant main effects or

interactions.

TABLE 3Mean (and standard error) proportion priming for congruent targets in biasing

contexts relative to neutral baseline in Experiment 2 (�12 dB SNR), based on inverseefficiency scores

Type of

competing signal

Channel of

presentation

(competing

signal)

Ear of

presentation

(context)

Presence of

competing signal

Bias

strength

Proportion

priming

Forward Same Left Isolation Strong �0.11 (0.029)

Weak �0.05 (0.023)


Weak 0.017 (0.030)


Weak �0.05 (0.023)


Weak 0.02 (0.030)


Weak �0.08 (0.025)


Weak 0.01 (0.032)


Weak �0.08 (0.025)


Weak �0.04 (0.032)

Time-reversed Same Left Isolation Strong �0.18 (0.030)

Weak �0.10 (0.025)


Weak �0.04 (0.032)


Weak �0.02 (0.026)


Weak 0.04 (0.034)


Weak �0.10 (0.025)


Weak �0.02 (0.032)


Weak �0.08 (0.025)


Weak �0.08 (0.032)

Note: Values less than zero reflect facilitation.


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Experiment 2B: Competing speech in a different channel



TABLE 4Mean (and standard error) proportion priming for incongruent targets in biasing

contexts relative to neutral baseline in Experiment 2 (�12 dB SNR), based on inverseefficiency scores

Type of

competing signal

Channel of

presentation

(competing

signal)

Ear of

presentation

(context)

Presence of

competing signal

Bias

strength

Proportion

priming

Forward Same Left Isolation Strong 0.15 (0.070)

Weak 0.20 (0.073)


Weak 0.00 (0.055)


Weak 0.16 (0.073)


Weak 0.04 (0.055)


Weak 0.22 (0.077)


Weak 0.16 (0.058)


Weak 0.18 (0.077)


Weak 0.09 (0.058)

Time-reversed Same Left Isolation Strong 0.20 (0.073)

Weak 0.15 (0.077)


Weak �0.03 (0.058)


Weak 0.25 (0.081)


Weak 0.10 (0.061)


Weak 0.31 (0.077)


Weak 0.31 (0.058)


Weak 0.13 (0.077)


Weak 0.13 (0.058)

Note: Values greater than zero reflect inhibition.


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Congruent targets. Significant main effects emerged for both bias

strength, F(1, 32) �41.12, pB.0001, and competing signal, F(1, 32 �8.58,

p B.01, such that facilitation effects were larger for strong contexts than

weak contexts, and for contexts presented in isolation than in competing

speech. In addition, a significant interaction of competing signal�bias

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

Pro

port

ion

Prim

ing

-0.3

-0.25

-0.2

-0.15

-0.1

-0.05

0

Pro

port

ion

Prim

ing


* *

* *




Figure 4. Effect of competing speech presented in the same auditory channel as the sentence

context on the facilitation of congruent targets (top panel) and inhibition of incongruent targets

(bottom panel) in Experiment 2 (�12 dB SNR).


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strength�ear of presentation was obtained, F(1, 32) �12.43, pB.005. These

data are plotted in Figure 5 (top panel). Separate two-way repeated measures

ANOVAs were conducted for each ear of presentation (N�18 in each group)

to clarify the nature of this interaction. As in Experiment 1, ear of

presentation effects are described as primarily reflecting processing in the

contralateral hemisphere.

–0.3

–0.25

–0.2

–0.15

–0.1

–0.05

0

strong bias weak bias strong bias weak bias


Prop

ortio

n Pr

imin

g


–0.3

–0.25

–0.2

–0.15

–0.1

–0.05

0

strong bias weak bias strong bias weak bias


Prop

ortio

n Pr

imin

g


ns

* ns

ns *

*

*

ns ns

* ns

~

Figure 5. Effect of competing speech in a different auditory channel from the sentence context,

presented to the left hemisphere/right ear (left plots) or the right hemisphere/left ear (right plots)

on facilitation of congruent targets at SNRs of �12 dB in Experiment 2 (top panel), and 0 dB in

Experiment 1 (bottom panel).


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Contexts presented to the right ear (left hemisphere). Results revealed asignificant main effect of bias strength, F(1, 16) �7.71, pB.05, with strong

contexts producing greater facilitation than weak contexts, and a marginally

significant competing signal�bias strength interaction, F(1, 16) �3.46,

p�.08. One-sample t-tests demonstrated significant priming for contexts

presented in isolation, strong: t(17) ��6.36, pB.0001; weak: t(17) ��4.12, pB.001, and in competing speech, strong: t(17) ��5.15,

pB.0001; weak: t(17) ��2.89, pB.01. However, the effect of bias

strength on facilitation emerged only for contexts presented in isolation,paired t(17) ��3.72, pB.005, and not in competing speech, paired

t(17) ��1.28, p�.22.

Contexts presented to the left ear (right hemisphere). Significant main

effects of both bias strength, F(1, 16) �55.23, pB.0001, and competing

signal, F(1, 16) �6.61, pB.05, emerged. Thus, greater facilitation emerged

for strong contexts than for weak contexts, and facilitation was reduced in

competing speech relative to isolation. In addition, there was a significant

competing signal�bias strength interaction, F(1, 16) �9.12, pB.01. One-

sample t-tests revealed significant facilitation effects for contexts presented in

isolation, strong: t(17) ��7.14, pB.0001; weak: t(17) ��7.04, pB.0001.However, for contexts presented in competing speech, significant facilitation

emerged only for strong contexts, t(17) ��5.80, pB.0001, and not for weak

contexts, t(17) ��0.33, p�.75. Further, although competing speech had

a significant effect on facilitation for weak contexts, paired t(17) �4.05,

pB.001, it had no significant effect on strong contexts, paired t(17) �0.51,

p�.62.

Comparison with results of Experiment 1. These results differed sub-

stantially from the pattern of facilitation obtained for competing speech in a

different auditory channel at an SNR of 0 dB (Experiment 1). This was

confirmed in a five-way ANOVA with bias strength and competing signal aswithin-subjects variables and SNR, type of competing signal, and ear of

presentation as between-subjects variables, which revealed a significant

interaction of competing signal�bias strength�ear of presentation�SNR, F(1, 68) �9.78, pB.01. The data from the 0 dB SNR are plotted in

Figure 5 (bottom panel). Paired t-tests revealed that competing speech did

not significantly reduce facilitation at the 0 dB SNR when the sentence

context was presented to the RE/LH, strong contexts: t(19) ��0.41,

p �.69; weak contexts: t(19)�0.32, p�.75. The effect of bias strength onfacilitation was significant for sentences presented in isolation, t(19) ��2.50,

pB.05, and in competing speech, t(19)��4.29, pB.0001. When the

sentence context was presented to the LE/RH, facilitation was significantly

reduced for strong contexts, t(19)�3.60, pB.01, but not for weak contexts,


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t(19)�1.42, p�.17. The effect of bias strength on facilitation was significantfor sentences presented in isolation, t(19)��7.20, pB.0001, and marginally

significant in competing speech, t(19)��1.76, p�.09.

Incongruent targets. There were no significant main effects. The inter-action of bias strength�competing signal�ear of presentation was margin-

ally significant, F(1, 32) �3.71, p�.06. However, separate two-way

ANOVAs conducted for each ear of presentation revealed no significant

main effects of bias strength or competing signal and no significant

interactions. One-sample t-tests revealed that significant inhibition emerged

for sentence contexts presented in isolation, strong: t(35) �4.29, pB.0001;

weak: t(35) �4.60, p B.0001, and in competing speech, strong: t(35) �6.01,

pB.0001; weak: t(35) �4.88, pB.0001. These data are plotted in Figure 6.

Discussion

As in Experiment 1, biasing sentence contexts presented in isolation

produced both facilitation and inhibition priming, with significantly greaterfacilitation emerging for strong contexts than weak contexts and no

difference in inhibition due to bias strength. Thus, the facilitation of

congruent targets was sensitive to both semantic expectancy and contextual

constraint, whereas the inhibition of incongruent targets was based on

expectancy alone and was not influenced by the number of plausible

completions suggested by the sentence context.

Competing speech presented in the same auditory channel at the more

demanding SNR of �12 dB eliminated facilitation priming for both strongand weak contexts, and this effect emerged irrespective of the intelligibility of

the competing speech or the ear of presentation of the target sentence.

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

Pro

port

ion

Prim

ing


ns ns


Figure 6. Effect of competing speech in a different auditory channel from the sentence context

on inhibition of incongruent targets in Experiment 2 (�12 dB SNR).


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However, significant inhibition priming was obtained for targets in strong

contexts at this SNR, indicating that the operation of task-specific processing

strategies that depend upon the output of the semantic system are relatively

robust to energetic masking. As strategic effects are slow to emerge (den

Heyer, Briand, & Smith, 1985; Neely, 1977, 1991), it is possible that these

processes benefit from later-stage perceptual reanalysis of the context signal

after initial sensory activation. Although no significant inhibition was

obtained for targets in weak contexts, the interaction of bias strength and

competing signal was not significant. Inhibition priming was not affected by

competing signal intelligibility or ear of presentation.

Competing speech presented in a separate auditory channel from the

sentence context produced a strikingly different pattern of facilitation at the

�12 dB SNR than was observed at the more moderate SNR of 0 dB in

Experiment 1. Firstly, whereas the interference produced by the competing

signal in Experiment 1 depended upon its intelligibility, in Experiment 2 both

forward and time-reversed speech disrupted facilitation. This suggests that

the extent to which the meaningful content of the competing signal increases

informational masking depends upon the perceptual demands of the

listening environment, with the intelligibility of the competing signal

contributing less to the overall masking effect under more challenging

conditions.

As predicted, the reduction in SNR appears also to have increased

listeners’ focus of attention on the target signal, enhancing the processing of

the context sentence while suppressing the processing of the competing

speech. This would account at the counterintuitive finding that facilitation of

targets in strong contexts presented to the LE/RH was significantly reduced

at the 0 dB SNR, but was unaffected at the �12 dB SNR. Whereas the weak

focus of attention at the moderate SNR gave rise to a REA for intelligible

competing speech in this condition, the stronger focus at the more

demanding SNR may have served to override the REA (cf. Hugdahl,

2005), eliminating the interference effect for strong contexts. However, weak

contexts presented to the LE/RH failed to produce significant facilitation at

the �12 dB SNR. This raises the possibility that expectancy-based

facilitation does not emerge when contextual information is presented

exclusively to the LE/RH while processing of RE/LH stimuli is suppressed.

According to this interpretation, the pattern of performance observed in this

condition reflects message-level semantic processing in the RH only.

Interestingly, the results suggest that facilitation in the RH is based solely

on contextual constraint with no influence of expectancy. Similarly, in the

present study, when the context is presented to the RE/LH with competing

speech presented to the LE/RH at this SNR, significant facilitation emerges

for targets in both strong and weak contexts with no significant difference


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between these conditions. This suggests that facilitation in the LH is

expectancy-based with no influence of contextual constraint.

A similar pattern of results was observed in a recent neurophysiological

study using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to investigate semantic

processing of words in context in the visual modality. The N400 response*a

negative deflection in the ERP signal maximal over centro-parietal electrode

sites observed approximately 400 ms after the presentation of a word*is

sensitive to the sentence context in which a word occurs, such that N400

amplitude is reduced for words that are congruent with the sentence context

and enhanced for incongruent words (for a review see Kutas & Federmeier,

2000). Wlotko and Federmeier (2007) compared the effects of semantic

expectancy and contextual constraint on the N400 response to visual words

presented to the right visual field/LH and the left visual field/RH. Sentence

contexts were either strongly constraining (with few plausible completions)

or weakly constraining (with many plausible completions), and targets were

congruent words that were either expected or unexpected on the basis of the

context as determined by cloze probability measures. A reduction in N400

amplitude for expected targets was observed in both strongly and weakly

constraining contexts for targets presented to the RVF/LH. In contrast,

expected targets presented to the LVF/RH showed a large reduction in N400

amplitude in strongly constraining contexts but no reduction in weakly

constraining contexts. Thus, the N400 for RVF/LH targets was sensitive to

target expectancy, independent of contextual constraint, whereas for LVF/

RH targets, the N400 was sensitive to constraint, independent of expectancy.

Wlotko and Federmeier interpret these results in terms of the distinct roles of

prediction and constraint in the processing of words in a semantic context.

According to this view, the LH uses expectancies based on the semantic

features activated by the sentence context to predict upcoming information.

Targets presented to the RVF benefit when these expectancies are confirmed,

irrespective of the number of plausible completions the semantic context

allows. In contrast, the RH is responsible for integrating words into the

ongoing semantic context. Thus, an advantage is observed for an expected

word presented to the LVF when there are fewer plausible completions and no

such advantage when there are many plausible completions. The pattern of

facilitation effects observed in the present study is consistent with this account,

and suggests that similar results may be obtained in the auditory modality

under dichotic listening conditions using contralateral speech masking.

Unlike the results for facilitation, the inhibition of incongruent targets was

not significantly affected by competing speech in a separate auditory

channel, even at the more demanding SNR. Thus, contrary to our original

predictions, inhibitory priming is preserved under highly challenging

listening conditions when the attended and competing signals are presented


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at different spatial locations. This finding indicates that increased demandson selective auditory attention in a multitalker environment do not interfere

with the use of semantic information in the generation of task-specific

processing strategies.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

This study investigated the effect of a single competing talker on the priming

of spoken words by a meaningful sentence context. The sentence priming

paradigm was selected as an online measure of auditory comprehension that

is sensitive to both the activation of the semantic system, as reflected

primarily in the facilitation of congruent targets, and the operation of later-

stage strategic processes that use semantic information to aid task

performance, as reflected primarily in the inhibition of incongruent targets.The experimental paradigm explored the role of the following factors in

sentence comprehension in competing speech: (1) the strength of the

semantic bias imposed by the sentence context, as a means of evaluating

the effects of semantic expectancy and contextual constraint on spoken word

recognition in quiet and speech-masked conditions; (2) the energetic masking

effect of competing speech and the associated benefit from binaural spatial

unmasking, by comparing performance when the competing signal was

presented in the same auditory channel as the sentence context and when thecompeting signal was presented in a separate auditory channel; (3)

the contribution of meaningful content to the informational masking effect

of competing speech, by comparing the effects of forward and time-reversed

competing signals; (4) the perceptual and attentional demands of the

listening situation, by presenting the attended and competing signals at

moderate and more challenging SNRs; and (5) hemispheric differences in

speech perception and semantic processing, by manipulating the ear of

presentation of the attended and competing signals.Overall, the findings supported previous claims that facilitation and

inhibition effects reflect distinct aspects of processing in primed lexical

decision (Aydelott & Bates, 2004; Neely, 1991; Stanovich & West, 1983). The

facilitatory and inhibitory components of the priming effect responded

differently to the experimental manipulations under investigation, and the

pattern of results was compatible with the proposal that facilitation reflects

online semantic activation and integration, whereas inhibition reflects the

operation of expectancy-based strategies specific to the lexical decision task.For sentence contexts presented in isolation, responses to congruent targets

were faster and more accurate in both the strong and weak bias conditions,

consistent with priming models in which the context generates broad

expectancies based the set of activated features in semantic memory, and


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words with compatible features are more efficiently processed (Schwanen-

flugel & LaCount, 1988). Responses to congruent targets were also faster and

more accurate in the strong bias than in the weak bias conditions, consistent

with models in which semantic integration is more easily achieved when a

sentence has fewer plausible completions, resulting in an additional boost to

facilitation when the context is highly constraining (Kutas & Federmeier,

2000; Traxler & Foss, 2000). In contrast, responses to incongruent targets

were slower and less accurate in both strong and weak contexts, but there was

no significant difference between these bias conditions. This pattern is

predicted under strategic accounts of inhibitory priming in lexical decision,

in which the violation of semantic expectancies and/or the absence of a

semantic match between the context and target triggers a ‘‘nonword’’

response that must be suppressed when the target is a real word (Becker,

1980, 1982; Neely, 1991; Neely et al., 1989; Stanovich & West, 1983).

According to this view, any semantic mismatch will produce inhibition,

irrespective of the strength of the contextual bias.Facilitation and inhibition effects also differed in terms of their vulner-

ability to competing speech. Facilitation priming was reduced or eliminated

by a competing signal presented in the same auditory channel as the sentence

context, with weak contexts more adversely affected than strong contexts at

the moderate SNR. Thus, as observed in previous studies, the activation of

the semantic system is sensitive to factors such as energetic masking that

affect the intelligibility of the sensory input (Aydelott & Bates, 2004);

however, the extent to which reduced intelligibility disrupts word recognition

in context also depends upon the degree of semantic constraint imposed by

the preceding sentence (cf. Pichora-Fuller, 2008).

Facilitation priming showed a substantial overall benefit from binaural

unmasking when competing speech was presented in a different ear from the

sentence context. However, significant effects of ear of presentation revealed

hemispheric differences in both the interference produced by the competing

signal and the facilitation generated by the biasing sentence. When the

sentence and competing speech were presented at the same intensity level,

intelligible competing speech presented to the RE/LH interfered with the

processing of sentences presented to the LE/RH, resulting in reduced

facilitation of congruent targets in both strong and weak contexts. However,

no such interference was observed for time-reversed competing speech or for

forward competing speech presented to the LE/RH. Thus, at a moderate SNR

of 0 dB, facilitation priming appears to reflect the REA for intelligible speech

observed in previous studies (Kimura, 1961; Studdert-Kennedy & Shankwei-

ler, 1970; Wada & Rasmussen, 1960). In contrast, competing speech presented

at a greater intensity level than the context served to focus attention on the

auditory channel containing the biasing sentence, suppressing the processing


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of competing speech in the ignored channel and eliminating the effect of

competing signal intelligibility. Further, enhanced attention to a single

auditory channel at the �12 dB SNR revealed different patterns of priming

depending upon the ear of presentation of the context, with sentences

presented to the RE/LH producing facilitation of targets in both strong and

weak contexts, and sentences presented to the LE/RH producing facilitation

of targets in strong contexts only. This finding supports the conclusions of

Wlotko and Federmeier (2007) that the LH generates predictions about

upcoming information based on the semantic features activated by the

context, whereas the RH integrates incoming lexical-semantic information

into the sentence-level meaning. Federmeier (2007) accounts for this hemi-

spheric asymmetry in semantic processing in terms of the role of the RH in the

bottom-up assimilation of newly presented linguistic information, and the

potential contribution of left-lateralised language production mechanisms to

the generation of semantic predictions (cf. Pickering & Garrod, 2007).

Whether the language production system plays a critical role in predicting

upcoming information in spoken language comprehension remains a topic for

future research.

Unlike facilitation priming, the inhibition of incongruent targets was not

reliably influenced by the intelligibility of the competing signal or the ear of

presentation of the sentence context at either SNR. Competing speech in the

same auditory channel reduced inhibition priming at both SNRs; however,

significant inhibition was obtained for weak contexts at the 0 dB SNR, and

for strong contexts at the �12 dB SNR*conditions under which facilitation

priming was eliminated. This suggests that the generation of expectancy-

based strategies is relatively robust to reductions in signal intelligibility

introduced by energetic masking. The slow time course of strategic

processing may allow top-down perceptual reanalysis of the degraded signal,

making additional semantic information available for expectancy generation

at a later stage. Inhibition priming was unaffected when competing speech

was presented in a separate auditory channel from the sentence context,

demonstrating a complete release from masking at both SNRs. Thus,

although inhibitory priming effects are vulnerable to reductions in processing

time, as in the case of time-compressed speech (Aydelott & Bates, 2004),

task-dependent strategies are relatively insensitive to increased demands on

auditory selective attention.

In conclusion, the results of the present study supported the prediction

that the interference produced by a competing speech signal on the

processing of words in a semantic context depends upon the meaningful

content of the competing signal, the attentional demands of the listening

environment, and hemispheric asymmetries in the processing of speech and

semantic information. The energetic masking effect of a competing speech


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signal presented in the same auditory channel as an attended sentence

context reduced or eliminated the facilitation of congruent targets, particu-

larly for weakly biasing sentences, whereas the inhibition of incongruent

targets persisted even at a demanding SNR of �12 dB. Competing speech

presented to a different auditory channel from the attended signal produced

significant ear-of-presentation effects on facilitation priming, revealing

hemispheric differences in the processing of both the competing and attended

signals. At a 0 dB SNR, meaningful competing speech interfered with

facilitation only when presented to the right ear, consistent with the REA for

intelligible speech. At a �12 dB SNR, however, an interaction of ear of

presentation and contextual strength was observed, indicating that the extent

to which facilitation effects reflect semantic expectancy or contextual

constraint differs according to whether the sentence context is presented to

the RE/LH or the LE/RH. The findings were consistent with previous ERP

studies using visually presented materials. The dichotic sentence priming

paradigm therefore offers a potential methodology for exploring hemispheric

differences in semantic processing in the auditory modality.

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APPENDIXSentence contexts and word targets

Strong bias context Weak bias context

Congruent

target

One day the prince will become the One of the important pieces in chess is

the

king

He paid the rent on the first day of the They took a long holiday and stayed

away for almost a

month

While they waited for their table, they

had a drink at the

The maitre d’ invited them to sit at the bar

Pasta is my favourite kind of Before making dinner, I had to buy the food

The boy bounced the The man threw the ball

The woman had been ill so often she

began to worry about her

They drank to his health

The jockey went over the fence on his The rancher called out the vet to see

his

horse

At the hotel, we went swimming in the It made a big splash when I pushed my

brother into the

pool

To cross the river, they had to go over

the

The construction workers built a bridge

He weighed himself on the At the post office, I put the letters on

the

scale

The boy went to the library to borrow a The nervous student reached over to

the shelf to get the

book

When her husband left her, it broke her The surgeon transplanted the patient’s heart

The pendant hung on the end of the

silver

At the jewellery shop, she bought a

pretty

chain

Before receiving a licence, every driver

must pass a

He was very nervous about the test

I ran upstairs to answer the When we forgot to pay our bill, they

cut off our

phone

She always writes with her left The child was playing with matches

and burnt his

hand

At the wedding, they admired the

bride’s white

In the clothes shop, she bought a shirt

and a

dress

She got on all fours to scrub the The woman spilt her drink on the floor

He asked her out on a He apologised to her for forgetting

their

date

If he missed one more day at work, he’d

lose his

She didn’t want to go to work because

she hated her

job

In the stuffy room, it was difficult for

her to take a

The child blew out all of the candles in

a single

breath

When she woke up, she realised it had

all been a

The sleeping princess was so beautiful,

she was like a

dream

Granddad always sits in his favourite At the furniture shop, I bought a chair

The day he was elected, the politician

gave a

The politician was very nervous about

the

speech

There are seven days in a She stayed in London for a week

The runner finished third in the I hoped the competitor would win the race


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Appendix (Continued )


Congruent

target

Before he coughed, he felt a tickle in his The hot tea was good for her throat

The vicar declared they were husband

and

He bought a birthday present for his wife

She took the message and wrote her

flatmate a

They weren’t at home, so she wrote

them a

note

A rectangle is a common The geometry student drew the shape

I tell all of my secrets to my closest When I go to a party I sometimes

bring a

friend

The boy had a cold and needed to blow

his

The clown wore makeup on his nose

She moved to the front to get a better The tourists admired the beautiful view

The astronauts landed on the That night, I looked up at the moon

A slate fell off the The builder came and patched the roof

She was still grieving a year after her

mother’s

The family was distraught over his death

The tour guide preferred to lead a small The students worked together in a group

They went rowing in a As the sailor looked out at the sea he

saw a

boat

In spite of her strict diet she couldn’t

lose the

The railway platform couldn’t

withstand the

weight

Children learn most when they’re at a

good

When I was a child I hated everyone in

my

school

The man with the crutches had broken

his

The nurse bandaged the patient’s leg

The grizzly cub would soon mature into

an adult

In the forest, they saw a bear

She couldn’t stand to see the look on his The baby had porridge all over his face

In the office, the computer is on my They took all of the furniture in the

office except for the

desk

The giraffe has a long The acrobat had broken his neck

He went to the cellar to fetch the white Before the drinks party, he went to the

off-licence to buy the

wine

She hung the painting on the Mary leaned against the wall

He wanted to come in, but she refused

to open the

Her husband told her to open the door

She sat on a bench and fed the pigeons

in the

We went for a walk in the park

For Valentine’s Day he gave her a red The gardener’s favourite flower was a rose

The baby had a dummy in its The chocolate melted in his mouth

I went to the station to catch the At 12:35 she got on the train

It was getting dark, so she turned on

the

At night, he couldn’t work without a light

The barrister’s objection was overruled

by the

The defendant’s witness testified

before the

judge

The centre forward scored his third The player argued with the referee

about the

goal


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Appendix (Continued )


Congruent

target

The criminal knew that he was breaking

the

The solicitor always obeyed the law

She was afraid to fly and refused to get

on the

She liked to travel on a plane

The businessmen signed the papers

after closing the

The car salesman convinced them it

was a good

deal

They went to the cinema to see a Last Saturday on television I watched

a

film

There’s lots of sand on the In the summer we sometimes go to the beach


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sentence comprehension in competing speech: dichotic sentence-word priming reveals hemispheric...

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