Word frequency effect
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The word frequency effect is a subject matter associated with cognitive psychology and is a psychological phenomenon where recognition times are faster for words seen more frequently than for words seen less frequently.[1] Word frequency depends on individual awareness of the tested language.[2] The phenomenon can be extended to different characters of the word in non-alphabetic languages such as Chinese.[3]
A word is considered to be high frequency if the word is commonly used in daily speech, such as the word "the." A word is considered to be low frequency if the word is not commonly used, such as the word "strait."[4] Some languages such as Chinese have multiple levels of daily speech that impact frequency of words. There is frequency at the character level or at the word level.[3] There is also an effect of frequency at the orthographic level.[5] Lower frequency words benefit more from a single repetition than higher frequency words.[6]
Examples
| Word | Ranking |
|---|---|
| The | 1st[7] |
| At | 20th |
| So | 50th |
| Did | 70th |
| Got | 100th |
| Mind | 300th |
| Chaos | 5,000th |
| Falkland | 20,000th |
| Marche | 45,000th |
| Tisane | 85,000th |
Methods for Measuring the Word Frequency Effect
Cognitive Influences
The word frequency effect changes how the brain encodes the information. Readers began the higher frequency words faster than the lower frequency words when spelling the words from dictation. The length of saccade varies depending on the frequency of words and the validity of the previous (preview) word in predicting the target word. [5] For higher frequency target words, the saccades as the reader approaches the word is longer when there is a valid preview word in front of it than for lower frequency words. When the preview word is invalid, there is no difference in saccades between high or low frequency words.[8] Fixations follow an opposite pattern with longer fixations on low frequency words. [5] Research has also found that high frequency words are skipped more when read than low frequency words. Gaze duration is also shorter when reading high frequency words than low frequency words.[8] Module connections are strengthened as words increase in frequency assisting to explain differences in brain processing.[6]
Real World Applications
The importance of the word-frequency effect can be observed in time-sensitive situations.
Word Frequency Effect in Spoken Words
Word Frequency Effect in Written Words
Leading Character Effect (LCF)
In many languages, certain characters are used more frequently than others. Examples of more frequent characters in English are the vowels, m, r, s, t...etc. In other languages such as Chinese, characters are morphemes that are individual words.[3] More than 100,000 words in Chinese are made of the same 5,000 characters.[3] As people process the first character of the word, they make a mental prediction of what the word is before reading the rest of the characters. If the character and other preprocessing information indicates that the word is short and familiar, the reader is more likely to skip the entire word.[9]
The character frequency may be more important when reading than the frequency of the word as a whole. Reaction times for target words with a first character that was high frequency was shorter than those with first characters that were low frequency when simply naming the Chinese word. When making a lexical decision, target words with higher LCF took longer to respond to than low LCF.[3] These effects were moderated by the predictability of the next words as well as the predictability of the target word given the previous word.[8] The surrounding words also being high frequency results In faster reaction times particularly when the target word is high frequency as compared to low frequency words.[3]
Test-taking
The quick recognition of a word would potentially be important during a timed written assessment. With a strict limit on time available to complete a test, the presence of higher frequency words on the assessment would be more beneficial to the test-taker than low frequency words, as the high frequency words would be recognized faster and thus time could be utilized on other areas of the assessment.
Bilingualism
With more people becoming fluent in multiple languages, the word frequency effect could present differently in a first language than a second language. One study examined differences in reading across participants who were bilingual in Spanish and English. As word frequency effect increased in both languages, total reading time decreased. In L1 (first language) there were higher skipping rates than in L2 (second language). This suggests that lower frequency words in L2 were harder to process than both high and low frequency words in L1. Familiarity of the language plays a large role in reacting to the frequency of words.[2] Reaction rates of bilingual adults could also be impacted by age. Older adults were significantly slower to respond to lower frequency words but were faster to process higher frequency words.[2]
Driving
Quick recognition of a word could also be important when reading road signs while driving. As a vehicle moves and passed road signs on the side of the road, there is only a short amount of time available to be able to read the road signs. The presence of higher frequency words on the road sign would allow for faster recognition and processing of road sign meaning, which could be critical in such a time sensitive situation.
Criticisms
Daniel Voyer proposed some criticism for the word frequency effect in 2003 after experiments on laterality effects in lexical decisions.[10] His experiments demonstrated two findings:
- (1) Word frequency effect was only significant for the left visual field presentation
- (2) In a case-altered condition, the word frequency effect meaningful for right visual field presentations.
Voyer further posits that hemispheric asymmetries may play a role in the word frequency effect.
Future Directions
Psycholinguists believe that future study of the word frequency effect needs to consider the role of heuristics to determine the difference in eye movements between high and low frequency words.[8]
See also
References
- ^ Daniel Smilek; Scott Sinnett; Alan Kingstone. "Cognition". Oxford University Press Canada. Retrieved 7 May 2014.
- ^ a b c Whitford, Veronica. ""The effects of word frequency and word predictability during first- and second-language paragraph reading in bilingual older and younger adults"". Psychology and Aging. 32: 158–177.
- ^ a b c d e f Li, Meng-Feng; Gao, Xin-Yu; Chou, Tai-Li; Wu, Jei-Tun (2017-02-01). "Neighborhood Frequency Effect in Chinese Word Recognition: Evidence from Naming and Lexical Decision". Journal of Psycholinguistic Research. 46 (1): 227–245. doi:10.1007/s10936-016-9431-5. ISSN 0090-6905.
- ^ "Word Frequency Effect". Oxford University Press. Retrieved 21 October 2014.
- ^ a b c Bonin, Patrick; Laroche, Betty; Perret, Cyril. "Locus of word frequency effects in spelling to dictation: Still at the orthographic level!". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 42 (11): 1814–1820. doi:10.1037/xlm0000278.
- ^ a b Besner, Derek; Risko, Evan F. "Thinking outside the box when reading aloud: Between (localist) module connection strength as a source of word frequency effects". Psychological Review. 123 (5): 592–599. doi:10.1037/rev0000041.
- ^ Harris, Jonathan. "Wordcount". Retrieved 4 November 2014.
- ^ a b c d Liu, Yanping; Reichle, Erik D.; Li, Xingshan. "The effect of word frequency and parafoveal preview on saccade length during the reading of Chinese". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 42 (7): 1008–1025. doi:10.1037/xhp0000190. PMC 4925191. PMID 27045319.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: PMC format (link) - ^ Angele, Bernhard; Laishley, Abby E.; Rayner, Keith; Liversedge, Simon P. "The effect of high- and low-frequency previews and sentential fit on word skipping during reading". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 40 (4): 1181–1203. doi:10.1037/a0036396. PMC 4100595. PMID 24707791.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: PMC format (link) - ^ Voyer, Daniel (2003). "Word frequency and laterality effects in lexical decision: Right hemisphere mechanisms". Brain and Language. 87 (3): 421–431. doi:10.1016/s0093-934x(03)00143-3. Retrieved 4 November 2014.
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