Linguistic evidence suggests that syllables like "bdam" (with stop-stop clusters) are less preferred than "bzam" (with stop-fricative combinations). Here, we demonstrate that English speakers manifest similar preferences despite no direct experience with either structure. Experiment 1 elicited syllable count for auditory…

Finds (1) positive phonemic-masking effects occurred for dominant homophones; (2) null phonemic-masking effects occurred for subordinate homophones; and (3) subordinate homophones were much more likely to be falsely identified as their dominant mate. Suggests the source of these null phonemic-masking is itself a phonology effect. Concludes…

Hebrew constrains the occurrence of identical consonants in its roots: Identical consonants are acceptable root finally (e.g., skk), but not root initially (e.g., kks). Speakers' ability to freely generalize this constraint to novel phonemes (Berent, Marcus, Shimron, & Gafos, 2002) suggests that they represent segment identity-a relation among…