The effects of phonotactic probability and neighborhood density on adults’ word learning in noisy conditions

Purpose: Noisy conditions may be more challenging to people with communicative disorders than people without disabilities. This study explores whether noisy conditions impact the effects of phonotactic probability and neighborhood density on adults’ word learning. Method: Fifty-eight young adults were exposed to nonwords varying in phonotactic probability and neighborhood density in either 0dB SNR or +8dB SNR. A picture naming task was used to measure word learning and the proportion of phonemes that were named correctly served as the dependent variable. Results: The 0dB SNR condition did not show a main effect of phonotactic probability or neighborhood density, but did show significant interactions between these word characteristics. Specifically, adults learned more words when high-high and low-low phonotactic probability and neighborhood density were combined. The +8dB SNR condition did not show this interaction. These results were inconsistent with those from a prior adult word le