Neighborhood frequency effects in visual word recognition: A comparison of lexical decision and masked identification latencies
Open accessAbstract
Recent research suggests that the time to recognize a visually presented word may be a function of the frequencies of orthographically similar words. More precisely, recognition latencies and errors appear to increase significantly as soon as the stimulus word is orthographically similar to at least one other higher frequency word. This phenomenon, referred to as the neighborhood frequency effect, was subjected to further experimental testing, using a larger selection of words of varying frequency and length, and using a new experimental technique that proved to be extremely sensitive to such effects. The results provide additional support for earlier observations of neighborhood frequency effects. It is also demonstrated that clear word-frequency effects do obtain when neighborhood frequency is held constant. The results support activation-based accounts of the word-recognition process.
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Three of the four studies manipulating neighbor frequency in word naming have yielded facilitatory effects, including Grainger's (1990) investigation of French stimuli and subjects.
“Three of the four studies manipulating neighbor frequency have also yielded facilitatory effects, including Grainger's (1990) investigation of French stimuli and subjects.”
From The effect of orthographic similarity on lexical retrieval: Resolving neighborhood conflicts (1997) · cites this paper as Grainger, 1990
The General Discussion reports neighborhood interference, not facilitation. The Experiment 1 Method confirms that the stimuli were French words, but the paper tested lexical decision and masked identification, not word naming. Page numbers are not supplied for these passages in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.90)
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Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredGrainger and Segui (1990, Experiment 2) found that words with a high-frequency neighbor were less accurately identified, particularly when the target was low frequency.
“Paralleling Snodgrass and Minzer's (1993) findings for manipulations of neighborhood size under single response conditions (Experiments 3, 4, and 5), words with a high-frequency neighbor were less accurately identified, particularly when the target was lowfrequency.”
From The effect of orthographic similarity on lexical retrieval: Resolving neighborhood conflicts (1997) · cites this paper as Grainger & Segui, 1990
All but two of the studies demonstrating inhibitory effects of higher frequency neighbors have used non-English stimuli.
“All but two ofthe studies demonstrating inhibitory effects ofhigher frequency neighbors have used non-English stimuli-French (Grainger & Jacobs, 1996;Grainger et aI., 1989;Grainger & Segui, 1990), Dutch (Grainger, 1990), or Spanish (Carreiras et aI., 1997).”
From The effect of orthographic similarity on lexical retrieval: Resolving neighborhood conflicts (1997) · cites this paper as Grainger & Segui, 1990
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References 21 · Cited by 230
- Authors
- Grainger, J., & Segui, J.
- Venue
- Perception & Psychophysics
- Published
- 1990-03
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 191-198
- ISSN
- 0031-5117 (ISSN-L)
- 1532-5962
- OpenAlex
- W1995698589
- Cited by
- 230
- References
- 21
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 4 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 7 · 2015: 6 · 2014: 12 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 16
- FWCI
- 6.14
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Licence
- www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
- Locations
- Perception & Psychophysics (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
- Keywords
- visual word recognition, lexical decision, word frequency, orthographic similarity, recognition latency, word length
- MeSH terms
- Attention, Form Perception, Humans, Pattern Recognition, Visual, Perceptual Masking, Reaction Time, Reading, Semantics
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