Sequence and word frequency

Abstract It is well-established that the linear ordering of words in a sentence is influenced by a variety of factors that are typically labelled as grammatical, discourse or cognitive constraints. The aim of the present study is to determine whether frequency effects are visible in the sequencing of words in a sentence. In other words, do “more frequently used units tend to be placed before less frequently used units” (Fenk-Oczlon 2001: 443)? Using a corpus of newspaper articles, we examine the frequency of words in different positions in sentences. That is, using data from thousands of sentences, we investigate the median value for the frequency or rank of words in first position in a sentence, compared with second position, and so on. We find that there is a frequency effect in English: the first element in a sentence has the highest frequency and last element in a sentence has the lowest frequency, with the middle of sentences having a more or less flat frequency profile. We also find that the overall shape of the frequency profile for sentences is rather consistent even when sentence length is taken into account.

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Semantic Diversity Accounts for the “Missing” Word Frequency Effect in Stroke Aphasia: Insights Using a Novel Method to Quantify Contextual Variability in Meaning

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience ◽

10.1162/jocn.2011.21614 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 23 (9) ◽

pp. 2432-2446 ◽

Cited By ~ 63

Author(s):

Paul Hoffman ◽

Timothy T. Rogers ◽

Matthew A. Lambon Ralph

Keyword(s):

Word Frequency ◽

Language Processing ◽

Conceptual Knowledge ◽

Computational Models ◽

Semantic Analysis ◽

Semantic Dementia ◽

Frequency Effect ◽

Word Frequency Effect ◽

Frequency Effects ◽

Control Processes

Word frequency is a powerful predictor of language processing efficiency in healthy individuals and in computational models. Puzzlingly, frequency effects are often absent in stroke aphasia, challenging the assumption that word frequency influences the behavior of any computational system. To address this conundrum, we investigated divergent effects of frequency in two comprehension-impaired patient groups. Patients with semantic dementia have degraded conceptual knowledge as a consequence of anterior temporal lobe atrophy and show strong frequency effects. Patients with multimodal semantic impairments following stroke (semantic aphasia [SA]), in contrast, show little or no frequency effect. Their deficits arise from impaired control processes that bias activation toward task-relevant aspects of knowledge. We hypothesized that high-frequency words exert greater demands on cognitive control because they are more semantically diverse—they tend to appear in a broader range of linguistic contexts and have more variable meanings. Using latent semantic analysis, we developed a new measure of semantic diversity that reflected the variability of a word's meaning across different context. Frequency, but not diversity, was a significant predictor of comprehension in semantic dementia, whereas diversity was the best predictor of performance in SA. Most importantly, SA patients did show typical frequency effects but only when the influence of diversity was taken into account. These results are consistent with the view that higher-frequency words place higher demands on control processes, so that when control processes are damaged the intrinsic processing advantages associated with higher-frequency words are masked.

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Base word Frequency and Pseudohomophone Naming

The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A ◽

10.1080/713755677 ◽

1996 ◽

Vol 49 (4) ◽

pp. 1044-1061 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Chris M. Herdman ◽

Jo-Anne LeFevre ◽

Stephanie L. Greenham

Keyword(s):

Word Frequency ◽

High Frequency ◽

Low Frequency ◽

Frequency Effect ◽

Base Word ◽

Phonological Coding ◽

Frequency Effects ◽

Lexical Representations ◽

Frequency Group ◽

Whole Word

The advantage of naming pseudohomophones over non-pseudohomophones has been interpreted as reflecting the contribution of whole-word lexical representations in phonological coding. A whole-word interpretation was further supported by Taft and Russell (1992), who reported a pseudohomophone frequency effect such that pseudohomophones were named faster if they corresponded to high- than to low-frequency base-words (e.g. poast vs. hoast). Experiment 1 replicated this pseudohomophone frequency effect using the Taft and Russell items. Further analyses showed, however, that the pseudohomophones in Taft and Russell's high-frequency group were more orthographically similar to words than the pseudohomophones in the low-frequency group. These differences in orthography may have been the cause of the “frequency” effects. In Experiment 2, a new set of high- and low-frequency pseudohomophones was constructed that were matched on orthographic factors (i.e. SPBF and N). With these items, a standard pseudohomophone advantage was found such that pseudohomophones were named faster and more accurately than non-pseudohomophones. However, in contrast to Taft and Russell's results, pseudohomophone naming was not related to base-word frequency. We conclude that the pseudohomophone advantage occurs at a postlexical stage in non-word naming.

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Phonology Matters: The Phonological Frequency Effect in Written Chinese

Psychological Science ◽

10.1111/1467-9280.00247 ◽

2000 ◽

Vol 11 (3) ◽

pp. 234-238 ◽

Cited By ~ 36

Author(s):

Johannes C. Ziegler ◽

Li Hai Tan ◽

Conrad Perry ◽

Marie Montant

Keyword(s):

Word Frequency ◽

Word Identification ◽

Silent Reading ◽

Frequency Effect ◽

Chinese Characters ◽

Phonological Information ◽

Word Frequency Effect ◽

Frequency Effects ◽

Linguistic Property

Does phonology play a role in silent reading? This issue was addressed in Chinese. Phonology effects are less expected in Chinese than in alphabetical languages like English because the basic units of written Chinese (the characters) map directly into units of meaning (morphemes). This linguistic property gave rise to the view that phonology could be bypassed altogether in Chinese. The present study, however, shows that this is not the case. We report two experiments that demonstrate pure phonological frequency effects in processing written Chinese. Characters with a high phonological frequency were processed faster than characters with a low phonological frequency, despite the fact that the characters were matched on orthographic (printed) frequency. The present research points to a universal phonological principle according to which phonological information is routinely activated as a part of word identification. The research further suggests that part of the classic word-frequency effect may be phonological.

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Word Frequency Effect in Lexical Decision Task: Evidence from Khalkha Mongolian

Journal of Siberian Federal University Humanities & Social Sciences ◽

10.17516/1997-1370-0498 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1954-1964

Author(s):

Mikhail S. Vlasov ◽

Tumee Odonchimeg ◽

Vasha Sainbaiar ◽

Tat‘iana I. Gromoglasova

Keyword(s):

Lexical Decision ◽

Lexical Decision Task ◽

Word Frequency ◽

Frequency Effect ◽

Decision Task ◽

Real Word ◽

Word Frequency Effect ◽

Lexical Memory ◽

Frequency Effects ◽

Experimental Findings

In experimental psycholinguistics, one clue into the architecture of lexical memory comes from the presence of robust frequency effects in lexical decision task (LDT), in which subjects judge whether a written stimulus is a real word or a nonword, and processing complexity is measured by reaction time (RT). For example, in LDT the visual word recognition process is facilitated (or inhibited) by word frequency as measured from the representative corpus. Our study verifies the word frequency effect in standard (“yes/no task”) LDT performed by Khalkha Mongolian subjects. The results showed strong weight of word frequency as RTs predictor (R2 = .631, F (1, 28) = 50.57, p < .000, β = .802, t = 7.111, p < .000). Our experimental results also correspond to experimental findings on word frequency effects for Japanese Katakana (syllabic) and Kanji (logographic) words in standard LDT. Such lexical decision “script moderation” could be the actual clue for further LDT experiments (e. g., relatively “deep” Mongolian script vs. “shallow” Cyrillic Mongolian)

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Experience Matters

Zeitschrift für Psychologie ◽

10.1027/2151-2604/a000423 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 228 (4) ◽

pp. 254-263 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Pedro S. Mendes ◽

Karlos Luna ◽

Pedro B. Albuquerque

Keyword(s):

Word Frequency ◽

High Frequency ◽

Recall Test ◽

Judgments Of Learning ◽

Direct Experience ◽

Frequency Effects ◽

Actual Frequency ◽

Actual Word ◽

High Frequency Words

Abstract. The present study tested if word frequency effects on judgments of learning (JOLs) are exclusively due to beliefs or if the direct experience with the items also plays a role. Across four experiments, participants read prompts about the frequency of the words (high/low), which could be congruent/incongruent with the words’ actual frequency. They made pre-study JOLs (except Experiment 1b), immediate JOLs, and completed a recall test. If experience drives the effect, JOLs should be based on actual word frequency rather than the prompts. Results showed higher pre-study JOLs for prompts of high frequency, but higher immediate JOLs for high-frequency words regardless of the prompt, suggesting an effect of direct experience with the words. In Experiments 2 and 3, we manipulated participants’ beliefs, finding a small effect of beliefs on JOLs. We conclude that, regarding word frequency, direct experience with the items seems more relevant than beliefs when making immediate JOLs.

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