Does word frequency affect lexical selection in speech production?

We evaluated whether lexical selection in speech production is affected by word frequency by means of two experiments. In Experiment 1 participants named pictures using utterances with the structure “pronoun + verb + adjective”. In Experiment 2 participants had to perform a gender decision task on the same pictures. Access to the noun's grammatical gender is needed in both tasks, and therefore lexical selection (lemma retrieval) is required. However, retrieval of the phonological properties (lexeme retrieval) of the referent noun is not needed to perform the tasks. In both experiments we observed faster latencies for high-frequency pictures than for low-frequency pictures. This frequency effect was stable over four repetitions of the stimuli. Our results suggest that lexical selection (lemma retrieval) is sensitive to word frequency. This interpretation runs against the hypothesis that a word's frequency exerts its effects only at the level at which the phonological properties of words are retrieved.     

Does bilingualism hamper lexical access in speech production?

In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that bilingualism may cause a linguistic disadvantage in lexical access even for bilinguals' first and dominant language. To this purpose, we conducted a picture naming experiment comparing the performance of monolinguals and highly-proficient, L1-dominant bilinguals. The results revealed that monolinguals name pictures faster than bilinguals, both when bilinguals perform picture naming in their first and dominant language and when they do so in their weaker second language. This is the first time it has been demonstrated that bilinguals show a naming disadvantage in their L1 in comparison to monolingual speakers.     

Does visual speech information affect word segmentation?

We present an experiment in which we explored the extent to which visual speech information affects learners’ ability to segment words from a fluent speech stream. Learners were presented with a set of sentences consisting of novel words, in which the only cues to the location of word boundaries were the transitional probabilities between syllables. They were exposed to this language through the auditory modality only, through the visual modality only (where the learners saw the speaker producing the sentences but did not hear anything), or through both the auditory and visual modalities. The learners were successful at segmenting words from the speech stream under all three training conditions. These data suggest that visual speech information has a positive effect on word segmentation performance, at least under some circumstances.     

Picture–word interference reveals inhibitory effects of syllable frequency on lexical selection

While previous research has shown that high syllable frequency can facilitate speech production at the level of phonological/phonetic encoding, little is known about its influence on prephonological processes, specifically lexical selection. The current study used a picture–word interference (PWI) task to (a) shed light on the stages of lexical access where syllable frequency is relevant, and (b) inform as to whether lexical selection is accomplished via competition among activated word options. Participants named pictures whose names had high-frequency (HF) and low-frequency (LF) first syllables while ignoring phonologically related (same first syllable) or unrelated distractor words that were presented simultaneously. Word frequency was also manipulated, as half of the targets were HF words, and half were LF words. Results revealed inhibitory syllable frequency effects in all conditions, such that targets with HF first syllables were named more slowly than targets with LF first syllables. However, inhibitory syllable frequency effects were exacerbated in conditions thought to reflect heightened lexical competition, specifically in the presence of phonologically related distractors and for targets with low word frequency. These findings reveal novel evidence for first-syllable frequency effects on lexical selection and offer further support for models proposing delays at lexical selection due to activation of nontarget competitors.     

Are lexical decisions a good measure of lexical access? The role of word frequency in the neglected decision stage

Three experiments investigated the impact of five lexical variables (instance dominance, category dominance, word frequency, word length in letters, and word length in syllables) on performance in three different tasks involving word recognition: category verification, lexical decision, and pronunciation. Although the same set of words was used in each task, the relationship of the lexical variables to reaction time varied significantly with the task within which the words were embedded. In particular, the effect of word frequency was minimal in the category verification task, whereas it was significantly larger in the pronunciation task and significantly larger yet in the lexical decision task. It is argued that decision processes having little to do with lexical access accentuate the word-frequency effect in the lexical decision task and that results from this task have questionable value in testing the assumption that word frequency orders the lexicon, thereby affecting time to access the mental lexicon. A simple two-stage model is outlined to account for the role of word frequency and other variables in lexical decision. The model is applied to the results of the reported experiments and some of the most important findings in other studies of lexical decision and pronunciation.     

Does frequency trajectory influence word identification? A cross-task comparison

In a series of six experiments, the influence of frequency trajectory in visual word recognition was investigated. In Experiment 1, frequency trajectory was found to exert a strong and reliable influence on age of acquisition (AoA) ratings. In word reading (Experiment 2), lexical decision (Experiments 3 and 6), proper name decision (Experiment 4), progressive demasking (Experiment 5), and a multiple regression analysis of lexical decision times taken from the French Lexicon Project, the effect of frequency trajectory was not reliable. In contrast, in all the experiments and in the multiple regression analysis, cumulative frequency had a strong and reliable influence on word recognition times. The findings firmly establish that in alphabetic languages such as French, age-limited learning effects do not surface readily in word recognition. In contrast, the total exposure to words across the lifetime is a strong determinant of word recognition speed. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

Do handwritten words magnify lexical effects in visual word recognition?

An examination of how the word recognition system is able to process handwritten words is fundamental to formulate a comprehensive model of visual word recognition. Previous research has revealed that the magnitude of lexical effects (e.g., the word-frequency effect) is greater with handwritten words than with printed words. In the present lexical decision experiments, we examined whether the quality of handwritten words moderates the recruitment of top-down feedback, as reflected in word-frequency effects. Results showed a reading cost for difficult-to-read and easy-to-read handwritten words relative to printed words. But the critical finding was that difficult-to-read handwritten words, but not easy-to-read handwritten words, showed a greater word-frequency effect than printed words. Therefore, the inherent physical variability of handwritten words does not necessarily boost the magnitude of lexical effects.     

Can residual lexical knowledge concern word form rather than word meaning?

We described a patient with a dramatic deficit of both word comprehension and naming but with good preservation of visual pictorial semantics. On word-picture matching, his performances were slightly better than expected based on the observed lexical semantic disorder; in addition, the patient, who maintained good preservation of his underlying phonology, showed a tendency to point to the picture phonologically related to the target. In order to interpret these data, we advanced the hypothesis that the patient, in spite of his virtually complete inability to name, would be able, in a word-picture matching task, to "covertly" (i.e., preverbally) retrieve the name from the picture and to use this name to attempt a match with the phonological form of the stimulus word. This mechanism, that we called "phonological" comprehension, would allow the identification of the correct target and would explain the choice of the phonologically related foil that was sometimes selected.     

What is a word? Recognizing polymorphemic lexical items in DLI.

This paper addresses issues of frequency and transparency in word recognition and their importance for the organization of the mental lexicon in Developmentally Language Impaired (DLI) francophones. A simple visual lexical decision task probes responses of DLI and control participants when presented with verbs. DLI participants are sensitive to whole-word frequency and show little or no transparency effects. These results are interpreted as indicating that words are not organized according to "morphological families" in the DLI mental lexicon, but rather according to a principle of frequency. These facts support the hypothesis that words in the DLI mental lexicon lack lexical features and morphological structure.     

Does game pressure affect hand selection of NBA basketball players?

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to compare hand selection and accuracy of technical skills between low- and high-pressure games of the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the 2018–2019 regular season and playoffs.MethodA notational analysis was conducted on 24 games of four teams (12 low-pressure games and 12 high-pressure games, six of each team, three in each condition). One- or two-handed actions were recorded for dribbling, passing, catching, and shooting (layups, dunks, hooks, and tips) skills.ResultsDuring high-pressure games, players significantly increased the frequency of right-handed passing. High-pressure games also increased the frequency of left-handed catching. For dribbling and shooting, no differences were observed in hand frequency between conditions. The success rate of all analyzed skills was similar between the hands in both low- and high-pressure conditions.ConclusionOur results showed that game pressure could selectively modulate hand preference for passing and catching skills in elite-level basketball while presenting no significant effect on performance between hands.     

Does interword spacing influence lexical processing in Chinese reading?

This study investigated how inserting spaces between Chinese words affected word recognition in Chinese reading. Eye movements of Chinese readers were recorded in a sentence reading task where high- and low-frequency target words were presented in both the spaced and normally unspaced texts. We found that fixation durations on target words were shorter in the high- than low-frequency conditions, and shorter in the spaced than unspaced conditions. The survival analysis revealed that interword spacing advanced the temporal onset of word frequency effects relative to the normally unspaced condition. However, inconsistent with the findings in English reading, there was no interaction between word frequency and interword spacing on all fixation duration measures, and the Bayes factor analyses also favoured the hypothesis of null interaction. These data suggest that interword spacing facilitates visual rather than lexical processing in Chinese reading, and thus improves our understanding on the roles of interword spacing across different writing systems.     

Feature overlap slows lexical selection: Evidence from the picture–word interference paradigm

How does the presence of a categorically related word influence picture naming latencies? In order to test competitive and noncompetitive accounts of lexical selection in spoken word production, we employed the picture–word interference (PWI) paradigm to investigate how conceptual feature overlap influences naming latencies when distractors are category coordinates of the target picture. Mahon et al. (2007. Lexical selection is not by competition: A reinterpretation of semantic interference and facilitation effects in the picture-word interference paradigm. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 33(3), 503–535. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.33.3.503) reported that semantically close distractors (e.g., zebra) facilitated target picture naming latencies (e.g., HORSE) compared to far distractors (e.g., whale). We failed to replicate a facilitation effect for within-category close versus far target–distractor pairings using near-identical materials based on feature production norms, instead obtaining reliably larger interference effects (Experiments 1 and 2). The interference effect did not show a monotonic increase across multiple levels of within-category semantic distance, although there was evidence of a linear trend when unrelated distractors were included in analyses (Experiment 2). Our results show that semantic interference in PWI is greater for semantically close than for far category coordinate relations, reflecting the extent of conceptual feature overlap between target and distractor. These findings are consistent with the assumptions of prominent competitive lexical selection models of speech production.     

Does perceptual analysis continue during selection and production of a speeded response?

This study asked whether perceptual analysis of a stimulus can continue while a response to this stimulus is being generated. In Experiment 1, subjects rapidly named a word that was visually degraded with superimposed pixels. Near the time of response, degradation was removed for a short time and then followed by a mask. Subjects then made a second, unspeeded judgment about the identity of the word. Unspeeded judgments were more accurate, showing that the degradation-free stimulus exposure was processed. In Experiment 2, the task was the same, but the degradation was gradually faded out for an individually adjusted duration. Comparison of unspeeded-response accuracy on trials with and without a speeded response showed that stimulus analysis continued at full efficiency during speeded-response generation. The results support conclusions of Rabbitt and Vyas (1981) that perceptual analysis continues during response stages. This form of continuous processing does not necessarily contradict discrete stage models of human information processing, however.     

A word’s meaning affects the decision in lexical decision

The influence of an isolated word’s meaning on lexical decision reaction time (RT) was demonstrated through four experiments. Subjects in two experiments made lexical decision judgments, those in a third experiment pronounced the words used in the lexical decision task, and those in a fourth experiment quickly pronounced their first associative response to the words. Differences in lexical access time for the words were measured with the pronunciation task, and differences in meaning were assessed with the association task. Multiple regression analyses of lexical decision RT were conducted using associative RT, pronunciation RT, and other target word properties (printed frequency, length, instance dominance, and number of dictionary meanings) as predictor variables. These analyses revealed a relationship between lexical decision RT and associative RT after the effects of other variables had been partialed out. In addition, word frequency continued to have a significant relationship to lexical decision RT beyond that shared with pronunciation RT and the other variables. The results of these experiments indicate that at least some of the effect of word meaning and word frequency in lexical decision is attributable to a decision stage following lexical access.     

Are precues effective in proactively controlling taboo interference during speech production?

ABSTRACT

This research investigated whether precues engage proactive control to reduce emotional interference during speech production. A picture-word interference task required participants to name target pictures accompanied by taboo, negative, or neutral distractors. Proactive control was manipulated by presenting precues that signalled the type of distractor that would appear on the next trial. Experiment 1 included one block of trials with precues and one without, whereas Experiment 2 mixed precued and uncued trials. Consistent with previous research, picture naming was slowed in both experiments when distractors were taboo or negative compared to neutral, with the greatest slowing effect when distractors were taboo. Evidence that precues engaged proactive control to reduce interference from taboo (but not negative) distractors was found in Experiment 1. In contrast, mixing precued trials in Experiment 2 resulted in no taboo cueing benefit. These results suggest that item-level proactive control can be engaged under certain conditions to reduce taboo interference during speech production, findings that help to refine a role for cognitive control of distraction during speech production.     

Do production patterns influence the processing of speech in prelinguistic infants?

The headturn preference procedure was used to test 18 infants on their response to three different passages chosen to reflect their individual production patterns. The passages contained nonwords with consonants in one of three categories: (a) often produced by that infant (‘own’), (b) rarely produced by that infant but common at that age (‘other’), and (c) not generally produced by infants. Infants who had a single ‘own’ consonant showed no significant preference for either ‘own’ (a) or ‘other’ (b) passages. In contrast, infants’ with two ‘own’ consonants exhibited greater attention to ‘other’ passages (b). Both groups attended equally to the passage featuring consonants rarely produced by infants of that age (c). An analysis of a sample of the infant-directed speech ruled out the mothers’ speech as a source of the infant preferences. The production-based shift to a focus on the ‘other’ passage suggests that nascent production abilities combine with emergent perceptual experience to facilitate word learning.     

When does word meaning affect immediate serial recall in semantic dementia?

Patients with semantic dementia can show superior immediate recall of words that they still understand relatively well, as compared with more semantically degraded words, suggesting that conceptual knowledge makes a major contribution to phonological short-term memory. However, a number of studies have failed to show such a recall difference, challenging this view. We examined the effect of several methodological factors on the recall of known and degraded words in 4 patients with semantic dementia, in order to investigate possible reasons for this discrepancy. In general, our patients did exhibit poorer recall of the degraded words and made more phonological errors on these items. In addition, set size affected the magnitude of the recall advantage for known words. This finding suggests that semantic degradation influenced the rate of learning in the immediate recall task when the same items were presented repeatedly. The methods used to select known and degraded items also impacted on the recall difference. List length, however, did not affect the advantage for known words. The coherence of items in phonological short-term memory was affected by their semantic status, but not by the length of the material to be retained. The implications of these findings for the role of semantic and phonological representations in verbal short-term memory are discussed.     

Since when or how often? Dissociating the roles of age of acquisition (AoA) and lexical frequency in early visual word processing

The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of both word age of acquisition (AoA) and frequency of occurrence on the timing and topographical distribution of ERP components. The processing of early- versus late-acquired words was compared with that of high-frequency versus low-frequency words. Participants were asked to perform an orthographic task while EEG was recorded from 128 sites. RTs showed an effect of both word AoA and lexical frequency. ERPs revealed a neuro-functional dissociation between AoA and frequency effects in early word processing. AoA modulated the amplitude of left occipito-temporal selection-negativity, suggesting an effect of AoA on early orthographic and lexical access and revealing the crucial role of AoA in determining how words are neurally represented in the ventral pathway. Lexical frequency modulated the amplitude of left anterior negativity, providing evidence for the involvement of the left inferior frontal cortex in the processing of low-frequency words.     

Does implicit speech in same-different decisions extend to nonsense forms?

A previous study (Klapp, 1971) demonstrated that response latencies for same-different decisions involving printed words and numbers depend on the number of syllables needed for pronunciation. In the present experiment, Ss first learned to associate one- or two-syllable words to nonsense form stimuli. After extensive overlearning, the Ss were transferred to a same-different decision task involving these nonsense forms. Latencies were independent of number of syllables in the learned response. This was interpreted as showing that the Ss did not use the responses to mediate their same-different decisions, in contrast to the apparent implicit pronunciation for decisions involving printed words and numbers.     

Do age-related word retrieval difficulties appear (or disappear) in connected speech?

We conducted a comprehensive literature review of studies of word retrieval in connected speech in healthy aging and reviewed relevant aphasia research that could shed light on the aging literature. Four main hypotheses guided the review: (1) Significant retrieval difficulties would lead to reduced output in connected speech. (2) Significant retrieval difficulties would lead to a more limited lexical variety in connected speech. (3) Significant retrieval difficulties would lead to an increase in word substitution errors and in pronoun use as well as to greater dysfluency and hesitation in connected speech. (4) Retrieval difficulties on tests of single-word production would be associated with measures of word retrieval in connected speech. Studies on aging did not confirm these four hypotheses, unlike studies on aphasia that generally did. The review suggests that future research should investigate how context facilitates word production in old age.