Are stem homographs and orthographic neighbours processed differently during silent reading?
The aim of this research was to investigate the inhibitory effect of stem homographs–words that share stems but are morphologically unrelated–during reading. In Experiment 1 eye movements of participants were recorded while reading sentences that contained a target word preceded either by a stem homograph, an orthographically related or an unrelated control word. Target words were more difficult to read when preceded by stem homographs and orthographically related controls than when preceded by unrelated control words. However, no differences were found between stem homographs and unrelated controls. Two further priming experiments, one using the same stimuli as in Experiment 1 and the other using the same stimuli as in Allen and Badecker’s (1999) failed to show an inhibitory effect of stem homographs distinguishable from the inhibitory effect of orthographic controls.
