Control
of Variables Affecting the Lexical Decision Task
J.N. Mitchell & R. Okada |
The
conflicting results observed in many lexical decision studies may
have occurred because variables controlled in some studies were not
controlled in others. In the present experiment, homophony, homography,
word frequency, letter string length, part of speech, and concreteness
were controlled in a lexical decision task. For word strings, reaction
times were faster for high frequency nonhomographs than for low frequency
nonhomographs but no differences were found between the reactions
times for high frequency homographs and high frequency nonhomographs.
No differences occurred between low frequency words and a variety
of pseudowords. From these results, word frequency appears to be
a relevant factor in word recognition. Since low frequency words
and pseudowords have similar reaction times in a lexical decision
task, it appears that pseudowords are processed in the same way as
unfamiliar words, by their orthographic regularity.
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