In past decades, researchers have conducted a myriad of masked priming lexical decision experiments aimed at unveiling the early processes underlying lexical access. A relatively overlooked question is whether a masked unrelated wordlike/unwordlike prime influences the processing of the target stimuli. If participants apply to the primes the same…

The present study assessed intra- and cross-lingual neighborhood effects, using both a generalized lexical decision task and an analysis of a large-scale bilingual eye-tracking corpus (Cop, Dirix, Drieghe, & Duyck, 2016). Using new neighborhood density and frequency measures, the general lexical decision task yielded an inhibitory…

Additive and interactive effects of word frequency, stimulus quality, and semantic priming have been used to test theoretical claims about the cognitive architecture of word-reading processes. Additive effects among these factors have been taken as evidence for discrete-stage models of word reading. We present evidence from linear mixed-model…

Decision-makers effortlessly balance the need for urgency against the need for caution. Theoretical and neurophysiological accounts have explained this tradeoff solely in terms of the "quantity" of evidence required to trigger a decision (the "threshold"). This explanation has also been used as a benchmark test for evaluating…

Recent research using word recognition paradigms, such as lexical decision and speeded pronunciation, has investigated how a range of variables affect the location and shape of response time distributions, using both parametric and non-parametric techniques. In this article, we explore the distributional effects of a word frequency manipulation on…

J. S. Adelman and G. D. A. Brown (2008) provided an extensive analysis of the form of word frequency and contextual diversity effects on lexical decision time. In this reply, the current authors suggest that their analysis provides a valuable tool for the evaluation of models of lexical access and that the results they report are broadly…

There are numerous reports in the visual word recognition literature that the joint effects of various factors are additive on reaction time. A central claim by D. C. Plaut and J. R. Booth (2000, 2006) is that their parallel distributed processing model simulates additive effects of stimulus quality and word frequency in the context of lexical…

The variance reaction time model (VRTM) is proposed to account for various recognition data on reaction time, the mirror effect, receiver-operating-characteristic (ROC) curves, etc. The model is based on simple and plausible assumptions within a neural network: VRTM is a two layer neural network where one layer represents items and one layer…

This article evaluates 2 competing models that address the decision-making processes mediating word recognition and lexical decision performance: a hybrid 2-stage model of lexical decision performance and a random-walk model. In 2 experiments, nonword type and word frequency were manipulated across 2 contrasts (pseudohomophone-legal nonword and…

We present a new model for lexical decision, REM-LD, that is based on REM theory (e.g., Shiffrin & Steyvers, 1997). REM-LD uses a principled (i.e., Bayes' rule) decision process that simultaneously considers the diagnosticity of the evidence for the 'WORD' response and the 'NONWORD' response. The model calculates the odds ratio that the presented…

This article presents a theory of visual word recognition that assumes that, in the tasks of word identification, lexical decision, and semantic categorization, human readers behave as optimal Bayesian decision makers. This leads to the development of a computational model of word recognition, the Bayesian reader. The Bayesian reader successfully…

Models of speech production disagree on whether or not homonyms have a shared word-form representation. To investigate this issue, a picture-naming experiment was carried out using Dutch homonyms of which both meanings could be presented as a picture. Naming latencies for the low-frequency meanings of homonyms were slower than for those of the…

D. C. Plaut and J. R. Booth presented a parallel distributed processing model that purports to simulate human lexical decision performance. This model (and D. C. Plaut, 1995) offers a single mechanism account of the pattern of factor effects on reaction time (RT) between semantic priming, word frequency, and stimulus quality without requiring a…

The relative importance of internal and external letter features of words in children's developing reading was investigated to clarify further the nature of early featural analysis. In Experiment 1, 72 6-, 8-, and 10-year-olds read aloud words displayed as wholes, external features only (central features missing, thereby preserving word shape…

A number of experimental data have shown that naming latency increases with length for pseudo-words but not for frequent real words. Different interpretations have been proposed by current models of reading to account for such a length effect. The aim of the present study was to assess the impact of lexicality on length effect in both the reading…