As lexical knowledge increases, phonological representations have to become more precise to determine the differences between similar sound words (i.e. "calm", "come").

In this view, phonological representations are sequences of segments made up of distinctive features.

Italics are used in the following example to indicate a copy that lacks phonological representation:

Evidence rejected broader cognitive deficits underlying reading difficulties and raised questions about impaired phonological representations in disabled readers.

Ability to encode phonological representations: An underlying difficulty of poor readers.

Some dialects have both segments phonetically, but only one is present in phonological representations.

The segmental tier contains the features that define the segments articulated in the phonological representation.

The tone tier contains the features that show the distribution of tones in the phonological representation.

When a homophonic word is encountered, the phonological representation of that word is first activated.

One suggestion is that they both exploit the speed with which phonological representations are retrieved from long-term memory.