Speech segmentation and lexical retrieval in Spanish: Differential roles of syllable structure and consonant type

The present study investigated the role of syllable structure and consonant type in auditory fragment detection and written lexical retrieval in monolingual speakers of Spanish. Across two experiments, the study examined whether the influence of syllable-like word-initial fragments generalizes across tasks with different processing demands. In Experiment 1, fifty-nine Spanish monolingual speakers completed a fragment-monitoring task that tested whether they detected syllable-like fragments more rapidly when the fragments matched the first-syllable structure of spoken words. The experiment also examined whether fragment detection varied as a function of consonant type. Results revealed no significant effects of syllabic congruency, consonant type, or their interaction. In Experiment 2, forty-six Spanish monolingual speakers completed a guided lexical retrieval task in which they wrote words beginning with visually presented syllable-like fragments. Participants were more likely to retrieve words whose first-syllable structure matched CV than CVC fragments, revealing a CV advantage in written lexical retrieval. Within CVC targets, fragments ending in a liquid produced significantly lower match probabilities than fragments ending in a fricative or nasal; fricatives and nasals did not differ significantly. Together, the findings indicate that syllabic structure did not reliably influence auditory fragment detection but constrained the structure of words generated in the written lexical retrieval task. These findings suggest that the contribution of syllabic and consonantal information depends on the processing demands imposed by the task.