Abstract: Cross-modal semantic priming paradigm and lexical decision task were employed to investigate the processes of meaning access of two-syllable homophones in Chinese. The homophones were presented isolatedly in Experiment One and in sentences in Experiement Two. The results showed: First in the isolatedly-presenting condition, regardless of the inter-stimulus intervals (ISI) between auditory primes and visual probes, same facilitation effects were observed for two types of probes, which were related to either the dominant or the subordinate meaning of homophones. Second, in the 0-msec ISI condition,the same priming effects were found for the two types of probes if only sentence context was consistent with the corresponding meanings of homophones. Third, in the - 150-msec ISl condition, priming effect was found only when the probe was related to the dominant meaning of homophone and the sentence context was consistent with this meaning.

Key words: homophone, meaning access, sentence context, cross-modal priming, Chinese