A lexical cohort is a set of candidate words compatible with an initial stretch of speech during spoken word recognition. In a cohort model, new acoustic information changes which candidates remain plausible. The term describes candidates in recognition, rather than a group of people followed in a longitudinal study.[ref]
For an English example, an initial “cap” can fit “captain”, “captive” and “capsule”; later sounds distinguish them. The example assumes a particular vocabulary and pronunciation: spelling alone does not specify an acoustic cohort.
The 1978 experiments compared repeating ongoing speech with detecting altered pronunciations while following a written passage. Effects of where a mispronunciation occurred, and differences in the influence of context across tasks, constrained accounts of how incoming speech and prior expectations interact.[ref]
Processing interactions and lexical access during word recognition in continuous speech by William D. Marslen-Wilson and Alan Welsh. Abstract; shadowing and mispronunciation-detection tasks
A candidate set is a model construct; behaviour supplies evidence about its time course rather than a literal inventory of consciously considered words. New to topics? Read the docs here!