问题：

cohort theory

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答案：

Cohort theory is a supposed doctrine dealing with the spoken word recognition postulated by Marslen-Wilson and Welsh in AII0. It is suggested that the first few phonemes of a spoken word activate a set or cohort of word candidates that are consistent with the input. These candidates compete with one another for activation. As more acoustic input is analyzed, candidates that are no longer consistent with the input drop out of the set. This process continues until only one word candidate matches the input; the best fitting word may be chosen if no single candidate is a clear winner.