Orthographic Neighbors and Visual Word Recognition

Authors: Huntsman L.A.¹; Lima S.D.²

Source: Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Volume 31, Number 3, May 2002 , pp. 289-306(18)

Publisher: Springer

Buy & download fulltext article:

Price: $47.00 plus tax (Refund Policy)

Abstract:

Two lexical decision experiments, using words that were selected and closely matched on several criteria associated with lexical access, provide evidence of facilitatory effects of orthographic neighborhood size and no significant evidence of inhibitory effects of orthographic neighborhood frequency on lexical access. The words used in Experiment 1 had few neighbors that were higher in frequency. In Experiment 2, the words employed had several neighbors that were higher in frequency. Both experiments showed that words possessing few neighbors evoked slower responses than those possessing many neighbors. Also, in both experiments, neighborhood size effects occurred even though words from large neighborhoods had more potentially interfering higher-frequency neighbors than words from small neighborhoods.

Keywords: orthographic neighborhoods; visual word recognition; lexical access; orthographic neighborhood size; orthographic neighborhood frequency; lexical decision task

Language: English

Document Type: Regular paper

Affiliations: 1: Department of Psychology, San Jose State University, San Jose, California 95192-0120, USA; huntsman@email.sjsu.edu 2: Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, P.O. Box 413, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201

Publication date: 2002-05-01