Efthymia Kapnoula
LightNews LightNews
banner
effiekapnoula.bsky.social
Efthymia Kapnoula
@effiekapnoula.bsky.social
740 followers 260 following 57 posts
Group Leader @BCBL and Research Fellow @Ikerbasque studying speech and language. Passionate about basic research. Mom and feminist.
https://www.bcbl.eu/en/conocenos/equipo/efthymia-kapnoula
http://effiekapnoula.com/WorkWithMe.html
Posts Replies Media Videos
effiekapnoula.bsky.social
📢New paper

The presence of similar sounding words in the mental lexicon affects how new words are learned and how familiar words are recognized. But (how) do these lexical dynamics differ across languages?

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Title: Phonological neighbourhood density effects on Spanish spoken word recognition and word learning Abstract: Phonological neighborhood density (ND) is negatively linked to word recognition speed in English, but the opposite is found in Spanish. Additionally, while ND is facilitatory for English word learning, ND effects on Spanish word learning remain unclear. The current study sought to test the claim that ND works differently across languages. We examined the possibility that word recognition differences between languages stem from differences in stimuli, not language per se. Native Spanish-speaking participants completed a lexical decision task where words orthogonally varied across ND and length. We found slower recognition for high-ND words regardless of length, in line with English findings. ND effects on word learning also paralleled those in English, with better learning for high-ND words. These findings challenge previously reported differences between English and Spanish and indicate that the interactive dynamics of neighborhood activation, and their effects on word processing and learning, are similar across the two languages.
September 8, 2025 at 1:06 PM
effiekapnoula.bsky.social
I'll be at #psychonomics this week and I have a poster on Friday evening (4117) - stop by!

Also, check out these presentations by other group members 👇

#psynom24
Title: Phonological Neighborhood Density Effects on Word Learning: What Happens After Sleep? Abstract: Novel words with many real-word neighbors (i.e., with high neighborhood density; ND) are learned better compared to those with few neighbors. A possible mechanism behind this effect is that hearing a novel word (e.g., “leet”) triggers the co-activation of similar-sounding words (e.g., “lit,” “leap,” "wheat”), aiding the formation of links between novel and familiar words and facilitating the integration of the novel word into the mental lexicon. Another factor that has been found to boost word learning is offline consolidation (e.g., during sleep). In this study, we examine the trajectory of the (facilitatory) ND effect on word learning over two consecutive days (i.e., before and after sleep-driven consolidation) in order to better understand its underlying mechanism(s). Specifically, if the ND and Consolidation effects are additive, this would point to independent mechanisms, whereas a ND × Consolidation interaction may be indicative of overlapping processes.
November 19, 2024 at 10:56 AM