The subjects' task in the present experiment was the recognition of the second of a pair of freely associated words, tachistoscopically presented. A stimulus word from a word association test is used as a “set-inducing” word. It was predicted that response words which are frequent associates of the set-inducing word would be more quickly recognized than response words that are infrequently associated with the set-inducing word.
High-frequency associates were found to yield shorter recognition times than two other classes of matched infrequent associates and the results are significant beyond the 0.05 level.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Cofer, C. N. and Shep, B. E., (1957). Verbal context and perceptual recognition time. Percept. Mot. Stalls, 7, 215.
2.
Dember, W. M., (1960). The Psychology of Perception (New York).
3.
Dotson, P. G., (1957). Perception of idiosyncratically familiar words. Percept. Mot. Skills, 7, 3.
4.
Goldiamond, I. and Hawkins, W. F., (1958). Vexierversuch; the log relationship between word frequency and recognition obtained in the absence of stimulus words. J. exp. Psychol., 56, 457.
5.
Jones, L. V., Goodman M. F. and Wepman, J. M., (1963). The classification of parts of speech for the characterization of aphasia. Language and Speech, 6, 94.
6.
Kristofferson, A. B., (1957). Word recognition, meaningfulness, and familiarity. Percept. Mot. Skills, 7, 219.
7.
McGinnies, E., Comer P. and Lacey, O. L., (1952). Visual recognition thresholds as a function of word length and frequency. J. exp. Psychol., 44, 65.
8.
Neisser, U., (1954). An experimental distinction between perceptual process and verbal response. J. exp. Psychol., 47, 399.
9.
Noble, C. E., (1953). The meaning familiarity relationship. Psychol. Rev., 60, 89.
10.
Noble, C. E., (1954). The familiarity frequency relationship. J. exp. Psychol., 47, 13.
11.
O'Neil, W. M., (1953). The effect of verbal association on tachistoscopic recognition. Austr. J. Psychol., 5, 42.
12.
Page, E. B., (1963). Ordered hypotheses for multiple treatments, a significant test for linear ranks. J. Amer. statist. Soc., 58, 216.
13.
Ross, S., Yorczower M. and Williams, G. M., (1956). Recognition thresholds for words as a function of set and similarity. Amer. J. Psychol., 69, 82.
14.
Solomon, R. L. and Howes, D. H., (1951). Word frequency, personal values, and visual duration threshold. Psychol. Rev., 58, 256.
15.
Solomon, R. L. and Postman, L., (1952). Frequency of usage as a determinant of recognition thresholds for words. J. exp. Psychol., 43, 195.
16.
Thorndike, E. L. and Lorge, I., (1944). The Teacher's Book of 30,000 Words (New York).
17.
Whorf, B. L., (1956). Language, Thought and Reality (Cambridge, Mass.).
