Abstract
Lexical decision times for homophones are usually longer than are those for nonhomophones, a phenomenon known as the homophone effect. However, experimental results regarding lexical decision times for Japanese homophones with multiple mates were inconsistent. We considered that this inconsistency could be due to the variance in the phonological familiarity regarding the homophones. Accordingly, we measured the lexical decision times for Japanese homophones with multiple mates and for those with a single mate by controlling their phonological familiarity. The results showed that homophone effects were found for both, but the effects for the single-mate homophones were smaller than were those for the multiple-mate homophones. Further analysis revealed that homophone effects for multiple-mate homophones were found even when the presented homophones were the most frequent mates, unlike the findings for English homophones. These results suggest that both phonological familiarity and the number of mates of homophones influence lexical decision times in native Japanese readers, and further, that in the case of multiple-mate homophones, multiple mates are activated irrespective of their frequency, which prolongs lexical decision times.
