The paper investigates the existence of position-independent segments in written and typed word production. In two experiments, we employed the segmental interference effect to first replicate past findings that naming a picture is more difficult in the context of another picture with which it shares segments in the same position (e.g., glow-flow) compared to an unrelated word (e.g., glow-cave). We then tested a new condition, in which the same target word is paired with an anagram of the original competitor (glow-wolf). Critically, the anagram shared the same number of segments with the target word, but never in the same position. Both experiments found robust interference for targets produced in the context of anagrams, with a magnitude comparable to the interference induced by the position-overlapping word. The results suggest that not only are position-independent segments represented in the production system, but they also play a critical role in activating segmentally related words and creating competition during word production.

Dye staining of applicators has been shown to be a reliable and objective method to test vaginal insertion in clinical microbicide trials, but different plastics, dyes, and product formulations may impact the accuracy of this method. Reportedly used applicators returned from 3 clinical trials were stained with 1% trypan blue. In a phase 1 study (VivaGel), using gel-filled HTI polypropylene applicators, 1271 (97%) of applicators stained positive. In a phase 1 and a phase 2a study (LACTIN-V) using linear low-density polyethylene applicators to deliver a dry powder formulation, 57 (95%) and 135 (86%) tested positive, respectively. Dye staining of vaginal applicators is an objective low-cost measure suitable for low-resource settings.