ABSTRACT
The adult lexicon is organized among many representational dimensions that encode phonological, semantic and perceptual links among words. Priming studies that use behavioral, eye-tracking and electrophysiological measurements highlight the interactive and dynamic nature of lexical processing and representation in the adult lexicon. Everyday language comprehension requires the listener to interpret a variety of linguistic and non-linguistic cues in real time at a rapid pace. While structure in the early lexicon is likely to benefit language processing and word learning, there are several questions regarding how this structure initially forms and develops. Such an influence would suggest that words or sounds overlapping in phonological structure are linked in the early lexicon such that hearing a word leads to partial or complete activation of other phonologically related words. Studies examining the nature of early semantic organization via priming para-digms have used a variety of experimental methods, including electrophysiological, preferential looking/eye-tracking and head-turn preference procedures.
