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Abstract: Two experiments examined factors that influence the processing of pseudohomophones (nonwords such as BRANE or JOAK, which sounds like words) and non-pseudohomophones (such as BRONE and JOAP, which do not sound like words). In Experiment 1, pseudohomophones yielded faster naming latencies and slower lexical decision latencies than non-pseudohomophones, replicating results of McCann and Besner (1987) and McCann, Besner, and Davelaar (1988). The magnitude of the effect was related to subject speed in lexical decision but not naming. Experiment 2 employed both immediate and delayed naming conditions. There was again a significant pseudohomophone effect that did not change in magnitude across conditions. These results indicate that pseudohomophone effects in the lexical decision and naming tasks have different bases. In lexical decision, they reflect the pseudohomophone's activation of phonological and semantic information associated with words. In naming they reflect differences in ease of articulating familiar vs. unfamiliar pronunciations. Implications of these results concerning models of word recognition are discussed, focusing on how pseudohomophone effects can arise within models that do not incorporate word-specific representations, such as the Seidenberg and McClelland (1989) model.

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