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Cited by 2,821Reading and Literacy DevelopmentNeurobiology of Language and BilingualismSecond Language Acquisition and Learning

Moving beyond Kučera and Francis: A critical evaluation of current word frequency norms and the introduction of a new and improved word frequency measure for American English

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Brysbaert, Marc, New, Boris·2009·Behavior Research Methods
DOI 10.3758/brm.41.4.977
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Abstract

Word frequency is the most important variable in research on word processing and memory. Yet, the main criterion for selecting word frequency norms has been the availability of the measure, rather than its quality. As a result, much research is still based on the old Kucera and Francis frequency norms. By using the lexical decision times of recently published megastudies, we show how bad this measure is and what must be done to improve it. In particular, we investigated the size of the corpus, the language register on which the corpus is based, and the definition of the frequency measure. We observed that corpus size is of practical importance for small sizes (depending on the frequency of the word), but not for sizes above 16-30 million words. As for the language register, we found that frequencies based on television and film subtitles are better than frequencies based on written sources, certainly for the monosyllabic and bisyllabic words used in psycholinguistic research. Finally, we found that lemma frequencies are not superior to word form frequencies in English and that a measure of contextual diversity is better than a measure based on raw frequency of occurrence. Part of the superiority of the latter is due to the words that are frequently used as names. Assembling a new frequency norm on the basis of these considerations turned out to predict word processing times much better than did the existing norms (including Kucera & Francis and Celex). The new SUBTL frequency norms from the SUBTLEX(US) corpus are freely available for research purposes from http://brm.psychonomic-journals.org/content/supplemental, as well as from the University of Ghent and Lexique Web sites.

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  • Words with higher frequency are typically more accessible as they are learned earlier and accessed more frequently in the language acquisition process.

    “Words with higher frequency (e.g., “chair” vs. “stepstool”) are typically more accessible as they are learned earlier and accessed more frequently in the language acquisition process. 36”

    From Automatic classification of AD pathology in FTD phenotypes using natural speech (2024) · cites this paper as [36]

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Authors
Brysbaert, M., & New, B.
Affiliations
  • Royal Holloway University of London (GB)
  • Université Paris Descartes (FR)
Corresponding author
Brysbaert, Marc
ORCID
Venue
Behavior Research Methods
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2009-11
Volume
41
Issue
4
Pages
977-990
ISSN
  • 1554-351X (ISSN-L)
  • 1554-3528
DOI
10.3758/brm.41.4.977
OpenAlex
W1997161938
Cited by
2,821
References
3
Citations by year
2026: 165 · 2025: 197 · 2024: 165 · 2023: 201 · 2022: 236 · 2021: 236 · 2020: 210 · 2019: 265 · 2018: 223 · 2017: 168 · 2016: 200 · 2015: 140 · 2014: 131 · 2013: 107 · 2012: 99
FWCI
101.90
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
www.springer.com/tdm (tdm)
Locations
  • Behavior Research Methods (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Ghent University Academic Bibliography (Ghent University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
Universiteit Gent
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Second Language Acquisition and Learning
Keywords
CELEX, word processing, corpus size, register, lemma frequency, contextual diversity, proper names, American English, psycholinguistic norms
MeSH terms
Data Interpretation, Statistical, Humans, Language, Memory, Mental Processes, Reference Standards, Vocabulary, Recognition, Psychology

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