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The role of inhibitory control in spoken word recognition: evidence from cochlear implant users
Journal article   Peer reviewed

The role of inhibitory control in spoken word recognition: evidence from cochlear implant users

Sarah E. Colby, Francis X. Smith and Bob McMurray
Language, cognition and neuroscience, Vol.39(8), pp.1059-1071
10/2024
DOI: 10.1080/23273798.2024.2369178
PMCID: PMC11619773
PMID: 39649019

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Abstract

During spoken word recognition, listeners must quickly map sounds to meaning while suppressing competitors. It remains unclear whether domain-general inhibitory control is recruited for resolving lexical competition. Cochlear implant (CI) users present a unique population for addressing this question because they are consistently confronted with degraded auditory input, and may need to rely on domain-general mechanisms to compensate. We examined word recognition in adult CI users who were prelingually deaf (lost their hearing in childhood, N = 21), postlingually deaf (lost their hearing in adulthood, N = 50), and normal hearing controls (NH; N = 71). Participants recognised words during an eye-tracking task and completed an inhibitory control task. CI users were slower to recognise words and did not resolve competition as fully. Better inhibitory control predicted faster word activation in NH controls and postlingual, but not prelingual, CI users. Prolonged experience with acoustic language may thus influence how domain-general mechanisms are recruited for language processing.

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