Talk:Word frequency effect

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Hello, I plan on completing some edits to this page in the next couple of days. I am an undergraduate psychology student studying this phenomenon in memory. I will add to the page several more reference links with descriptions of the findings in order to further explain the word frequency effect.

EmmaJo3721 (talk) 16:49, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Saholmes.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 05:04, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

proposed additions

Would this article benefit from adding some of the research to the history section rather than simply listing all of the names? Could a section on future directions as well as a section on the cognitive aspects of the word frequency effect clarify this concept? Saholmes (talk) 00:48, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Several possible research articles to add:

Besner, Derek; Risko, Evan F. (2016). Thinking outside the box when reading aloud: Between (localist) module connection strength as a source of word frequency effects. Psychological Review Vol 123(5) 592-599.

Bonin, Patrick; Laroche, Betty; Perret, Cyril. (2016). Locus of word frequency effects in spelling to dictation: Still at the orthographic level!. Journal of Experimental Psychology Vol 42(11) 1814-1820.

Liu, Yanping; Reichle, Erik D.; Li, Xingshan. (2016). The effect of word frequency and parafoveal preview on saccade length during the reading of Chinese. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance Vol 42(7) 1008-1025.

Whitford, Veronica; Titone, Debra. (2017). The effects of word frequency and word predictability during first-and second-language paragraph reading in bilingual older and younger adults. Psychology and Aging Vol 32(2) 158-177.

Li, Meng-Feng; Gao, Xin-Yu; Chou, Tai-Li; Wu, Jei-Tun. (2017). Neighborhood frequency effect in Chinese word recognition: Evidence from naming and lexical decision. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research Vol 46(1) 227-245.

  These articles could add some of the more recent research to the article.Saholmes (talk) 02:05, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

comments re proposed additions

• Glad to see the recent publication years; this looks like an excellent start to improve this page.
• I'm not convinced a chronological history is even the best thing for this kind of research article; if you like that approach, then yes adding some specific results/theories seems critical

Greta Munger (talk) 18:52, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

Suggested Edits for the Article

• I have been working on editing and adding to this article. I have included my edits for peer review from my classmates and suggestions from my professor.

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. Word frequency depends on individual awareness of the tested language. The phenomenon can be extended to different characters of the word in non-alphabetic languages such as Chinese.

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." 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 or orthographic level. Lower frequency words benefit more from a single repetition than higher frequency words.

Contents [hide] 1 Contents 2 Examples[edit | edit source] 3 Cognitive Influences [edit | edit source] 3.1 Leading Character Frequency Effect (LCF) 4 Real World Applications[edit | edit source] 4.1 Test-taking[edit | edit source] 4.2 Driving[edit | edit source] 4.3 Bilingualism 5 Future Directions[edit | edit source] 6 See also[edit | edit source] 7 References[edit | edit source] 8 Future Directions for Research [edit | edit source] 9 Introduction[edit | edit source] 10 Assessment[edit | edit source] 11 History of Mental Rotation[edit | edit source] 12 External links[edit | edit source] Contents[edit | edit source]

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1 Examples 3 Criticisms 4 Real World Applications 4.1 Test-taking 4.2 Driving 5 See also 6 References Examples[edit | edit source][edit | edit source] Word Ranking The 1st At 20th So 50th Did 70th Got 100th Mind 300th Chaos 5,000th Falkland 20,000th Marche 45,000th Tisane 85,000th Cognitive Influences [edit | edit source][edit | edit source] 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[4]. 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.[3] Fixations follow an opposite pattern with longer fixations on low frequency words.[4] 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.[3] Module connections are strengthened as words increase in frequency assisting to explain differences in brain processing.[5]

Leading Character Frequency Effect (LCF)[edit | edit source] 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. [2] These effects were moderated by the predictability of the next words as well as the predictability of the target word given the previous word.[3] 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.[2]

Real World Applications[edit | edit source][edit | edit source] The importance of the word-frequency effect can be observed in time-sensitive situations.

Test-taking[edit | edit source][edit | edit source] 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.

Driving[edit | edit source][edit | edit source] 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.

Bilingualism[edit | edit source] 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.[1] 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.[1]

Future Directions[edit | edit source][edit | edit source] 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.[3] Saholmes (talk) 01:34, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

Peer Review

Check your first sentence, "Readers began the higher frequency words faster than the lower frequency words when spelling the words from dictation." I think it is just a typo, but what did they begin? For the leading character frequency, you may want to mention it is a chinese word, just seems thrown in there at the end. You may also want to give a brief example on this section. I think that may help viewers better understand the first character concept. Real world applications are great. For the Bilingualism section, you may want to add that it was a study. You claim that the word frequency effect increased in both languages, but its difficult to see where this comes from. Great job on the conciseness. Everything is engaging, yet simple and clear and your additions make it easy to get information on this topic. A.McAuliffe (talk) 13:25, 10 May 2017 (UTC)A.McAuliffe

References