Semantic influences on morphological facilitation

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie Beth Feldman ◽  
Dana M. Basnight-Brown ◽  
Matthew John Pastizzo

Two semantic variables, concreteness and morphological family size, were examined in a single word and a primed lexical decision task. Single word recognition latencies were faster for concrete relative to abstract targets only when morphological family size was small. The magnitude of morphological facilitation for primes related by inflection was greater than by derivation although both revealed a very similar interaction of concreteness and family size. In summary, concreteness influenced morphological processing so as to produce slower decision latencies for small family abstract than concrete words both in a single word and in a morphologically primed context. However, magnitudes of facilitation in isolation from baselines provided an incomplete account of morphological processing.

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (6) ◽  
pp. 1221-1238 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALEXANDRE NIKOLAEV ◽  
MINNA LEHTONEN ◽  
EVE HIGBY ◽  
JUNGMOON HYUN ◽  
SAMEER ASHAIE

ABSTRACTThe aim of the present study was to investigate whether the recognition speed of Finnish nominal base forms varies as a function of their paradigmatic complexity (stem allomorphy) or productivity status. Nikolaev et al. (2014) showed that words with greater stem allomorphy from an unproductive inflectional class are recognized faster than words with lower stem allomorphy from a productive inflectional class. Productivity of an inflectional paradigm correlates with the number of stem allomorphs in languages like Finnish in that unproductive inflectional classes tend to have higher stem allomorphy. We wanted to distinguish which of these two characteristics provides the benefit to speed of recognition found by Nikolaev et al. (2014). The current study involved a lexical decision task comparing three categories of words: unproductive with three or more stem allomorphs, unproductive with two stem allomorphs, and productive with two stem allomorphs. We observed a facilitation effect for word recognition only for unproductive words with three or more stem allomorphs, but not for unproductive words with two allomorphs. This effect was observed particularly in words of low to moderate familiarity. The findings suggest that high stem allomorphy, rather than productivity of the inflectional class, is driving the facilitation effect in word recognition.


2016 ◽  
Vol 44 (7) ◽  
pp. 1191-1200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liusheng Wang ◽  
Hongmei Qiu ◽  
Jianjun Yin

The abstractness effect describes the phenomenon of individuals processing abstract concepts faster and more accurately than they process concrete concepts. In this study, we explored the effects of context on how 43 college students processed words, controlling for the emotional valence of the words. The participants performed a lexical decision task in which they were shown individual abstract and concrete words, or abstract and concrete words embedded in sentences. The results showed that in the word-context condition the participants' processing of concrete concepts improved, whereas in the sentence-context condition their processing of abstract concepts improved. These findings support the embodied cognition theory of concept processing.


1988 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 757-770 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Wilding

Two experiments are reported that examined the joint effects of word frequency and stimulus quality in the context of a lexical decision task. In the first experiment the interval between response to a stimulus and onset of the next stimulus was 0.8 sec, and the effect of the two factors was additive. In the second this interval was 3.3 sec, and the effect of reducing stimulus quality was greater for infrequent words than for frequent words. This is similar to the result of Norris (1984). The inability of current models of word recognition to explain this finding is discussed.


1995 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Segalowitz ◽  
Vivien Watson ◽  
Sidney Segalowitz

This study illustrates, in the context of vocabulary assessment research, a procedure for analysing a single subject's variability of response times (RTs) in a simple, timed lexical decision task. Following the interpretation developed in Segalowitz and Segalowitz (1993) for RT variability as reflection of the automatic/controlled nature of underlying processing mechanisms, it was possible to draw conclusions about the extent to which second language English word recognition in this subject was subserved by automatic as opposed to controlled processes. The study also examined the development of automaticity in word recognition skill for a small, selected vocabulary as a function of reading experience during a three-week testing period. The general implications of this methodology for assessing vocabulary skill in a single case are discussed.


2016 ◽  
Vol 49 (5) ◽  
pp. 1930-1938 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Haro ◽  
Marc Guasch ◽  
Blanca Vallès ◽  
Pilar Ferré

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana Marcet ◽  
María Fernández-López ◽  
Melanie Labusch ◽  
Manuel Perea

Recent research has found that the omission of accent marks in Spanish does not produce slower word identification times in go/no-go lexical decision and semantic categorization tasks [e.g., cárcel (prison) = carcel], thus suggesting that vowels like á and a are represented by the same orthographic units during word recognition and reading. However, there is a discrepant finding with the yes/no lexical decision task, where the words with the omitted accent mark produced longer response times than the words with the accent mark. In Experiment 1, we examined this discrepant finding by running a yes/no lexical decision experiment comparing the effects for words and non-words. Results showed slower response times for the words with omitted accent mark than for those with the accent mark present (e.g., cárcel < carcel). Critically, we found the opposite pattern for non-words: response times were longer for the non-words with accent marks (e.g., cárdil > cardil), thus suggesting a bias toward a “word” response for accented items in the yes/no lexical decision task. To test this interpretation, Experiment 2 used the same stimuli with a blocked design (i.e., accent mark present vs. omitted in all items) and a go/no-go lexical decision task (i.e., respond only to “words”). Results showed similar response times to words regardless of whether the accent mark was omitted (e.g., cárcel = carcel). This pattern strongly suggests that the longer response times to words with an omitted accent mark in yes/no lexical decision experiments are a task-dependent effect rather than a genuine reading cost.


Author(s):  
Rikuta Mizukoshi ◽  
Masahiro Yoshihara ◽  
Keisuke Ida ◽  
Junyi Xue ◽  
Yuu Kusunose ◽  
...  

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