scholarly journals Priming effects in the recognition of simple and complex words and pseudowords

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-222
Author(s):  
Miguel Lázaro ◽  
Víctor Illera ◽  
Javier Sainz
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Orthographic Processing ◽  
Frequency Effect ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
The Third ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Intense Debate

AbstractWhether morphological processing of complex words occurs beyond orthographic processing is a matter of intense debate. In this study, morphological processing is examined by presenting complex words (brujería -> brujo –witchcraft -> witch), as well as simple (brujaña->brujo) and complex pseudowords (brujanza ->brujo), as primes in three masked lexical decision tasks. In the first experiment, the three experimental conditions facilitated word recognition in comparison to the control condition, but no differences emerged between them. Given the importance of the surface frequency effect observed, a second experiment was conducted. The results fully replicate those observed in the first one, but this time with low frequency targets. In the third experiment, vowels were removed from the stems of primes to reduce the orthographic overlap between primes and targets and, therefore, the influence of the embedded stem effect. The results show facilitative effects only for complex words. However, paired comparisons show no differences between experimental conditions. The overall results show the central role played by the processing of stems in visual word recognition and are explained in terms of current models of morphological processing.

How word frequency affects morphological processing in monolinguals and bilinguals

2003 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 213-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
MINNA LEHTONEN ◽  
MATTI LAINE
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Decision Task ◽  
Frequency Range ◽  
Medium Frequency ◽  
Word Forms ◽  
Full Form ◽  
Differential Pattern ◽  
Complex Words

The present study investigated processing of morphologically complex words in three different frequency ranges in monolingual Finnish speakers and Finnish-Swedish bilinguals. By employing a visual lexical decision task, we found a differential pattern of results in monolinguals vs. bilinguals. Monolingual Finns seemed to process low frequency and medium frequency inflected Finnish nouns mostly by morpheme-based recognition but high frequency inflected nouns through full-form representations. In contrast, bilinguals demonstrated a processing delay for all inflections throughout the whole frequency range, suggesting decomposition for all inflected targets. This may reflect different amounts of exposure to the word forms in the two groups. Inflected word forms that are encountered very frequently will acquire full-form representations, which saves processing time. However, with the lower rates of exposure, which characterize bilingual individuals, full-form representations do not start to develop.

scholarly journals Universal and particular in morphological processing: Evidence from Hebrew

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (5) ◽  
pp. 1125-1133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yael Farhy ◽  
João Veríssimo ◽  
Harald Clahsen
Keyword(s):  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Masked Priming ◽  
Word Processor ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Root Decomposition ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Verb Forms ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Open Class

Do properties of individual languages shape the mechanisms by which they are processed? By virtue of their non-concatenative morphological structure, the recognition of complex words in Semitic languages has been argued to rely strongly on morphological information and on decomposition into root and pattern constituents. Here, we report results from a masked priming experiment in Hebrew in which we contrasted verb forms belonging to two morphological classes, Paal and Piel, which display similar properties, but crucially differ on whether they are extended to novel verbs. Verbs from the open-class Piel elicited familiar root priming effects, but verbs from the closed-class Paal did not. Our findings indicate that, similarly to other (e.g., Indo-European) languages, down-to-the-root decomposition in Hebrew does not apply to stems of non-productive verbal classes. We conclude that the Semitic word processor is less unique than previously thought: Although it operates on morphological units that are combined in a non-linear way, it engages the same universal mechanisms of storage and computation as those seen in other languages.

Identity Primes Produce Facilitation in a Colour Naming Task

1994 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 957-1000 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer S. Burt
Keyword(s):  
Low Frequency ◽  
Naming Task ◽  
Initial Letter ◽  
Frequency Effect ◽  
Associative Priming ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Attentional Effect ◽  
Letter Case ◽  
Identity Priming ◽  
Naming Latencies

Five experiments examined associative or identity priming effects in a colour-naming task with colour-neutral words. In Experiment 1, subjects instructed to read the prime silently showed no associative priming effect but a colour-naming facilitation with identity priming. In Experiment 2, the typical associative priming interference in colour naming was demonstrated in subjects recalling the prime word, but not in subjects reading the prime silently, whereas associative primes facilitated word naming regardless of the prime response requirement. The remaining studies investigated the colour-naming facilitation observed with identity primes. Experiment 3 showed no effects on the facilitation of colour naming from varying the letter case of a silently read prime. Experiment 4 showed facilitation when subjects recalled the prime, and a target frequency effect, with faster colour-naming latencies for high- and medium- than low-frequency targets. In Experiment 5, there was no facilitation for naming the colour of target words paired with non-word primes differing in their initial letter from the target. Taken together, the results suggest that the facilitation of colour naming following identical primes reflects faster target word recognition, whereas the associative priming interference reflects an attentional effect.

How Simple Complex Words Can Be: Morphological Processing and Word Representations

1988 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marijke W. Bergman ◽  
Patrick T. W. Hudson ◽  
Paul A. T. M. Eling
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Morphological Structure ◽  
Error Rates ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Affect Recognition ◽  
Simple Complex ◽  
Morphological Complexity ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Prefixed Words ◽  
Do So

In four lexical decision experiments we studied the effect of morphological complexity on word recognition. Some potentially relevant linguistic aspects of derived nouns were varied: the location of the affix (prefix vs. suffix); the genuineness of the affix (real vs. pseudo); the orthographic legality of pseudo-stems; semantic compositionality; the nature of the stem (free vs. bound); the origin of the complex word (Latinate vs. Germanic); the currency of the stem (current vs. moribund). Furthermore, in the first two experiments, we systematically varied the proportion of complex and simple words to see whether strategies influence morphological effects on recognition times. Consistent with Taft's notion of affix stripping, pseudoprefixed words show longer mean decision times and higher error rates than truly prefixed words. Further, the prefixed and nonprefixed (but not pseudoprefixed) words are processed equally rapidly, indicating that a decompositional process is efficient. No differences were found, however, for suffixed, pseudosuffixed, and nonsuffixed words. There was no effect of the proportion of simple and complex words. There are some indications that the etymological origin of words may affect recognition times, but no other linguistic aspects of derivations do so. The results of the four experiments are interpreted as supporting a left-to-right process for word recognition in which morphemes are extracted automatically. During this process information encoded by morphological structure becomes available for other processes.

Lexical dynamics for low-frequency complex words

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 419-463 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. H. Baayen ◽  
Lee H. Wurm ◽  
Joanna Aycock
Keyword(s):  
Word Recognition ◽  
Theoretical Analysis ◽  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Target Word ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Mixed Effects ◽  
Frequency Range ◽  
Frequency Effects ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Root Frequency

In this study we examine the word recognition process for low-frequency morphologically complex words. One goal of the study was to replicate and expand upon findings suggesting facilitative effects of morphological relatives of a target word. A second goal was to demonstrate the need for a reinterpretation of root and surface frequency effects, which traditionally have been taken as indicators of parsing-based and memory-driven processing, respectively. In a first study, we used the same stimuli across auditory and visual lexical decision and naming. Mixed-effects statistical modeling revealed that surface frequency was a robust predictor of RTs even in the very low end of the distribution, but root frequency was not. Also, the nature of the similarity between a target and its lexical competitors is crucial. Measures gauging the influence of morphological relatives of the target were facilitative, while measures gauging the influence of words related only in form were inhibitory. A second study analyzing data from the English Lexicon Project, for a large sample of words from across the full frequency range, supports these conclusions. An information-theoretical analysis of root and surface frequency explains why surface frequency must be the most important predictor, with only a marginal role for root frequency.

scholarly journals Morphological processing in L2 Italian

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 322-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Serena Dal Maso ◽  
Hélène Giraudo
Keyword(s):  
Learning Process ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
High Surface ◽  
Masked Priming ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Morphological Priming ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
L2 Learning ◽  
Complex Words

The present paper explores the processing of morphologically complex words in L2 Italian by means of as series of masked priming experiments associated with a LDT. We manipulated deadjectival nominalizations in -ità (e.g. velocità < veloce) and in -ezza (e.g. bellezza < bello), that differ in terms of numerosity, productivity (Rainer, 2004) and on surface frequency. Morphological priming effects were evaluated relative to both orthographic and identity conditions and the data revealed significant morphological priming effects emerging for words ending with the most productive suffix (-ità) and having a high surface frequency in Italian. Our data on derivation suggest that similarly to native speakers, L2 learners are sensitive to morphological information, but they integrate it progressively through L2 learning process.

scholarly journals Short article: Is morphological decomposition limited to low-frequency words?

2009 ◽  
Vol 62 (9) ◽  
pp. 1706-1715 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samantha F. McCormick ◽  
Marc Brysbaert ◽  
Kathleen Rastle
Keyword(s):  
High Frequency ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Masked Priming ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Automatic Process ◽  
Short Article ◽  
Mean Frequency ◽  
Show Evidence ◽  
Complex Words

On the basis of data from masked priming experiments, it has been argued that an automatic process of decomposition is applied to all morphologically structured stimuli, irrespective of their lexical characteristics (Rastle, Davis, & New, 2004). So far, this claim has been tested only with respect to low-frequency primes and nonword primes. This is a limitation because some models of morphological processing postulate that only high-frequency complex words are recognized as whole forms. Thus, a more stringent test would be to determine whether high-frequency complex words also show evidence of masked priming. We report an experiment that compares masked-priming effects observed when the primes constitute morphologically structured nonwords (e.g., alarmer–ALARM), low-frequency words with a mean frequency of 2 per million (e.g., notional–NOTION), and high-frequency words with a mean frequency of 60 per million (e.g., national–NATION). These three conditions yielded significant and equivalent effects, lending strong support to the notion of a routine form of decomposition that is applied to all morphologically structured stimuli.

The Effects of Base Frequency and Affix Productivity in Spanish

2012 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 505-512 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Lázaro López-Villaseñor
Keyword(s):  
Lexical Decision ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Frequency Effect ◽  
Base Frequency ◽  
Pair Comparisons ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Main Effects ◽  
First Time ◽  
Pair Analysis ◽  
Morphological Representation

In this study we present the results of a lexical decision experiment where the variables manipulated are Base frequency and Affix productivity. The results show significant main effects for both variables for the first time in Spanish, as well as for the interaction between the two. However, pair analysis shows that the Base Frequency effect is not significant when the Affix Productivity is low, while the Affix Productivity effect is produced regardless of the Base Frequency. The results for the main effects show a morphological representation in the lexicon, whilst the results of pair comparisons suggest a different representation of stems and affixes in the lexicon. These results support the idea that complex words incorporating unproductive affixes are processed differently from words incorporating productive affixes. The results are finally explained in terms of a hierarchical model of morphological processing.

The processing of morphologically complex words in a specific speaker group

2016 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 308-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunnar Jacob ◽  
Bilal Kırkıcı
Keyword(s):  
Comparison Group ◽  
Native Speakers ◽  
Masked Priming ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Morphological Priming ◽  
L2 Learners ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Prime Target

The present study investigates to what extent morphological priming varies across different groups of native speakers of a language. In two masked-priming experiments, we investigate the processing of morphologically complex Turkish words in Turkish heritage speakers raised and living in Germany. Materials and experimental design were based on Kırkıcı and Clahsen’s (2013) study on morphological processing in Turkish native speakers and L2 learners, allowing for direct comparisons between the three groups. Experiment 1 investigated priming effects for morphologically related prime-target pairs. Heritage speakers showed a similar pattern of results as the L1 comparison group, with significant priming effects for prime-target pairs with inflected primes (e.g. ‘sorar-sor’ asks-ask) as well as for prime-target pairs with derived primes (e.g. ‘sağlık-sağ’ health-healthy). In Experiment 2, we measured priming effects for prime-target pairs which were semantically and morphologically unrelated, but only related with regard to orthographic overlap (e.g. ‘devre-dev’ period-giant). Unlike both L1 speakers raised in Turkey and highly proficient L2 learners, heritage speakers also showed significant priming effects in this condition. Our results suggest that heritage speakers differ from both native speakers and L2 learners in that they rely more on (orthographic) surface form properties of the stimulus during early stages of word recognition, at the expense of morphological decomposition.

Preserved morphological processing in heritage speakers: A masked priming study on Turkish

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-194 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gunnar Jacob ◽  
Duygu Fatma Şafak ◽  
Orhan Demir ◽  
Bilal Kırkıcı
Keyword(s):  
Native Speakers ◽  
Masked Priming ◽  
Morphological Processing ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Heritage Speakers ◽  
Priming Effects ◽  
Orthographic Similarity ◽  
Morphological Priming ◽  
Complex Words ◽  
Processing Mechanisms

In a masked morphological priming experiment, we compared the processing of derived and inflected morphologically complex Turkish words in heritage speakers of Turkish living in Berlin and in native speakers of Turkish raised and living in Turkey. The results show significant derivational and inflectional priming effects of a similar magnitude in the heritage group and the control group. For both participant groups, semantic and orthographic control conditions indicate that these priming effects are genuinely morphological in nature, and cannot be due to semantic or orthographic similarity between prime and target. These results suggest that morphological processing in heritage speakers is based on the same fundamental processing mechanisms as in prototypical native speakers. We conclude that heritage speakers, despite the fact that they have acquired the language in a particular setting and were exposed to a relatively limited amount of input, can nevertheless develop native-like processing mechanisms for complex words.

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