ABSTRACT
Initial activation of multiple words and subsequent competition for selection is present in spoken-word recognition. It is particularly robust in bilinguals, who, recognising L2, need to inhibit a partially activated L1. Additionally, cross-linguistic phonological differences may result in increased competitor effects, hampering auditory L2 understanding. Two groups of Polish learners of L2 English (pre- and post-phonetic training) and a group of native English speakers performed a cross-modal priming lexical decision task. Its aim was to establish the amount of priming exerted by words with competing vowels. CVC onsets overlapped phonologically with regard to consonants while vowels differed. The auditory primes in English contained vowel /e/ or /ʌ/, given the visual target with /æ/ (similar vowels) and /i:/ or /I/, given /ɒ/ (dissimilar vowels). Polish lacks /æ/, and this sound is confused by learners with Polish /ɛ/ or /a/, hence the hypothesised competition effect from similar primes in Polish participants. The dissimilar vowels are unlikely to induce competition. The response latencies show that in non-native groups similar competitors facilitate the recognition, while there is reduced facilitation in dissimilar pairs. In the native group, priming is absent. Priming is diminished after the phonetic training, exhibiting the influence of phonetic experience.
