Tachistoscopic word-recognition thresholds for abstract and concrete words of high and low frequency of occurrence were measured for 15 college subjects of high and 15 of low IQ to determine if word abstractness/concreteness is a significant one among these variables. Results refuted previous investigations with thresholds for abstract words being greater than thresholds for concrete words. Also, thresholds for high frequency of occurrence words were lower than for words of low frequency. Subjects with high and low IQs did not have different recognition thresholds. Frequency and word abstractness/concreteness interacted. Possible explanations for these findings are outlined.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
CalvinA. D.TyrellS.SchulzR. E.KoonsP. G.The effect of exposure-time on the relation between perceptual organization and intelligence. American Journal of Psychology, 1958, 71, 573–577.
2.
GormanA. M.Recognition memory for nouns as a function of abstractness and frequency. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1961, 61, 23–29.
3.
KuceraH.FrancisW. N.Computational analysis of present-day American English. Providence, R. I.: Brown Univer. Press, 1967.
4.
RiegelK. F.RiegelR. M.Prediction of word-recognition thresholds on the basis of stimulus-parameters. Language and Speech, 1961, 4, 157–170.
5.
SpielbergerC. D.DennyJ. P.Visual recognition thresholds as a function of verbal ability and word frequency. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1963, 65, 597–602.
6.
ThorndikeE. L.LorgeI.The teacher's word book of 30,000 words. New York: Teachers College, Columbia Univer., 1944.
7.
WinnickW. A.KresselK.Tachistoscopic recognition thresholds, paired-associate learning, and free recall as a function of abstractness-concreteness and word frequency. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1965, 70, 163–168.
