In this study, we examined the effects of word and character frequency across three commonly used word-identification tasks (lexical decision, naming, and sentence reading) using the same set of two-character target words (N = 60) and participants (N = 82). Facilitatory effects of word frequency were observed across all three tasks. The…

Most previous studies of semantic processing have examined group-level data. We investigated the possibility that there might be individual differences in semantic decision performance even among the standard undergraduate population and that such differences might provide insights into semantic processing. We analyzed the Calgary Semantic…

Comprehensive models of derived polymorphemic word recognition skill in developing readers, with an emphasis on children with reading difficulty (RD), have not been developed. The purpose of the present study was to model individual differences in polymorphemic word recognition ability at the item level among 5th-grade children (N = 173)…

Successful spoken language comprehension depends upon both sensory and cognitive processing. Since older adults often experience declines in one or both of these domains, and perform worse on some language processing tasks than younger listeners, an important question is how declines to both auditory perception and cognitive abilities affect…

Models of irregular word reading that take into account both child- and word-level predictors have not been evaluated in typically developing children and children with reading difficulty (RD). The purpose of the present study was to model individual differences in irregular word reading ability among 5th grade children (N = 170), oversampled for…

Word frequency and semantic priming effects are among the most robust effects in visual word recognition, and it has been generally assumed that these two variables produce interactive effects in lexical decision performance, with larger priming effects for low-frequency targets. The results from four lexical decision experiments indicate that the…

Scored responses of 100 subjects to 30 neutral and 30 emotional words. Unique responses were prone to perseverations and reproduction faults on retest. Maudsley Personality Inventory Extraversion scores correlated with number of unique responses and perseverations elicited by neutral words. Reasons considered and it is argued that emotional…

Tests of cognitive and perceptual abilities were given to 140 college students. These subjects then participated on two word-recognition tasks in which their recognition thresholds to both English and artificial words were obtained. (Editor)

The subjective magnitude estimation (SME) procedure was used to obtain estimates of relative word frequency from two adult groups (15 lexicographers, 13 other adults) for 60 words ranging widely in objective frequency. Lexicographers rendered more reliable estimates, and their averaged data correlated more highly with objective log frequency than…

An experiment in which 90 undergraduate students were tested on simple and complex versions of a word-span task with high and low frequency words suggests that both word knowledge and a content-free working memory play causal roles in the relationship between word span and higher level cognitive tasks. (SLD)

In three immediately succeeding trials, 45 young adults named 50 pictures of objects as rapidly as possible; word retrieval latencies were measured for each item. Before each trial, one experimental group was given information as to the word frequency (WF) level of the items' names. The other experimental group was given information as to the…