Skip to main content

Comparing Nouns and Verbs in a Lexical Task

Journal of Psycholinguistic Research volume 42, pages 21–35 (2013)Cite this article

Abstract

We analyzed the differential processing of nouns and verbs in a lexical decision task. Moderate and high-frequency nouns and verbs were compared. The characteristics of our material were specified at the formal level (number of letters and syllables, number of homographs, orthographic neighbors, frequency and age of acquisition), and at the semantic level (imagery, number and strength of associations, number of meanings, context dependency). A regression analysis indicated a classical frequency effect and a word-type effect, with latencies for verbs being slower than for nouns. The regression analysis did not permit the conclusion that semantic effects were involved (particularly imageability). Nevertheless, the semantic opposition between nouns as prototypical representations of objects, and verbs as prototypical representation of actions was not tested in this experiment and remains a good candidate explanation of the response time discrepancies between verbs and nouns.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

43,34 €

Price includes VAT (Finland)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

References

  • Baker M. C. (2003) Lexical categories: Verbs, nouns, and adjectives. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Balota D. A. (1994) Visual word recognition: The journey from features to meaning. In: Gernsbacher M. A. (eds) Handbook of psycholinguistics. Academic Press, San Diego, pp 303–358

    Google Scholar 

  • Balota D. A., Chumbley J. I. (1984) Are lexical decisions a good measure of lexical access? The role of word frequency in the neglected decision stage. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 10: 340–357

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Balota D. A., Ferraro F. R., Connor L. T. (1991) On the early influence of meaning in word recognition: A review of the literature. In: Schwanenflugel P. J. (eds) The psychology of word meaning. L.E. Associates Publishers, Hillsdale, pp 187–222

    Google Scholar 

  • Balota D. A., Cortese M. J., Sergent-Marshall S. D., Spieler D. H., Yap M. J. (2004) Visual word recognition of single-syllable words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 133: 283–316

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barsalou L. W. (1982) Context-independent and context-dependent information in concepts. Memory & Cognition 10: 82–93

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bassano D. (2000) Early development of nouns and verbs in French: Exploring the interface between lexicon and grammar. Journal of Child Language 25: 493–531

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bates E., Marchman V. A., Thal D., Fenson L., Dale P., Reznick J. S., Reilly J., Hartung J. (1994) Developmental and stylistic variations in the composition of early vocabulary. Journal of Child Language 21: 85–124

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Besner D., Joordens S. (1995) Wrestling with ambiguity—further reflections: Reply to Masson and Borowsky (1995) and Rueckl (1995). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 21: 515–519

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Borowsky R., Masson M. E. J. (1996) Semantic ambiguity effects in word identification. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 22: 63–85

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brown T. L., Carr T. H., Chaderjian M. (1987) Orthography, familiarity, and meaningfulness reconsidered: Attentional strategies may affect the lexical sensitivity of visual code formation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 13: 127–139

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Butler, C. S. (2007). Towards a cognitive-functional model of text comprehension. In C. Butler, R. H. Downing, & J. Lavid (Eds.), Functional perspectives on grammar and discourse. Studies in language companion series (Vol. 85, pp. 41–80). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

  • Careirras M., Perea M., Grainger J. (1997) Orthographic neighborhood effects on visual word recognition in Spanish: Cross-task comparisons. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 23: 857–871

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chiarello C., Liu S., Shears C., Kacinik N. (2002) Differential asymmetries for recognizing nouns and verbs: Where are they?. Neuropsychology 16: 35–48

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chumbley J. I., Balota D. A. (1984) A word’s meaning affects the decision in lexical decision. Memory and Cognition 12: 590–606

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clark J. M., Paivio A. (2004) Extensions of the Paivio, Yuille, and Madigan (1968) norms. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers 36(3): 371–383

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen J. (1983) The cost of dichotomization. Applied Psychological Measurement 7: 249–253

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Connine C. M., Mullennix J., Shernoff E., Yelen J. (1990) Word familiarity and frequency in visual and auditory word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 16: 1084–1096

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cordier F., Le Ny J.-F. (2005) Evidence of several components for word familiarity. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers 37(3): 528–537

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Declercq C., Le Ny J.-F. (2008) Verb-patient co-occurrences in Internet texts and verb manning in memory. Journal of Pragmatics 40: 630–645

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • De Groot A. M. B. (1989) Representational aspects of word imageability and word frequency as assessed through word association. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 15: 824–845

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dowty D. (1991) Thematic proto-roles and argument selection. Language 67(3): 547–619

    Google Scholar 

  • Druks J. (2002) Verbs and nouns. A review of the literature. Journal of Neurolinguistics 15: 289–315

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Federmeier K. D., Segal J. B., Lombrozo T., Kutas M. (2000) Brain responses to nouns, verbs and class-ambiguous words in context. Brain 123: 2552–2566

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ferretti T. R., McRae K., Hatherell A. (2001) Integrating verbs, situations schemas, and thematic role concepts. Journal of Memory and Language 44: 516–547

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gennari S., Poeppel D. (2003) Processing correlates of lexical semantic complexity. Cognition 89: B27–B41

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gernsbacher M. A. (1984) Resolving 20 years of inconsistent interactions between lexical familiarity and orthography, concreteness and polysemy. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 113(2): 256–281

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gilhooly K. J., Logie R. H. (1980) Age-of-acquisition, imagery, concreteness, familiarity and ambiguity measures for 1,944 words. Behavior Research, Methods & Instrumentation 12: 395–427

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grainger J., Jacobs A. M. (1996) Orthographic processing in visual word recognition: A multiple read-out model. Psychological Review 103: 518–565

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grainger J., O’Regan J. K., Jacobs A. M., Segui J. (1989) On the role of competing word units in visual word recognition: The neighbourhood frequency effect. Perception and Psychophysics 45: 189–195

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grainger J., Segui J. (1990) Neighborhood frequency effects, in visual word recognition: A comparison of lexical decision and masked-identification latencies. Perception and Psychophysics 47: 191–198

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hino Y., Lupker S. J. (1996) Effects of polysemy in lexical decision and naming: An alternative to lexical access accounts. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 22: 1331–1356

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hino Y., Lupker S. J., Pexman P. M. (2002) Ambiguity and synonymy effects in lexical decision, naming, and semantic categorization tasks: Interactions between orthography, phonology, and semantics. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 28: 686–713

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jastrzembski J. E. (1981) Multiple meanings, number of related meanings, frequency of occurrence, and the lexicon. Cognitive Psychology 13: 278–305

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Johnson N. F., Pugh K. R. (1994) A cohort model of visual word recognition. Cognitive Psychology 26: 240–346

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Joordens S., Besner D. (1994) When banking on meaning is not (yet) money in the bank: Explorations in connectionist modeling. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 20: 1051–1062

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kauschke C., Stenneken P. (2008) Differences in noun and verb processing in lexical decision cannot be attributed to word form and morphological complexity alone. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 37: 443–452

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kawamoto A. H., Farrar W. T., Kello C. T. (1994) When two meanings are better than one: Modeling the ambiguity advantage using a recurrent distributed network. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 14: 601–609

    Google Scholar 

  • Kemmerer D., Eggleston A. (2010) Nouns and verbs in the brain: Implications of linguistic typology for cognitive neuroscience. Lingua 120: 2686–2690

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Longe O., Randall B., Stamatakis E. A., Tyler L. K. (2007) Grammatical categories in the brain: The role of morphological structure. Cerebral Cortex 17: 1812–1820

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marslen-Wilson W. D., Bozic M., Randall B. (2008) Early decomposition in visual word recognition: Dissociating morphology, form, and meaning. Language and Cognitive Processes 23: 394–421

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Masson M. E. J., Borowsky R. (1995) Unsettling questions about semantic ambiguity in connectionist models: Comment on Joordens and Besner (1994). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 21: 509–514

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McClelland J. L., Rumelhart D. E. (1981) An interactive activation model of context effect in letter perception: Part 1. An account of basic finding. Psychological Review 88: 375–407

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McRae K., Feretti T. R., Amyote L. (1997) Thematic roles as verb-specific concepts. Language and Cognitive Processes 12: 137–176

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McRae K., Spivey-Knowlton M. J., Tanenhaus M. K. (1998) Modeling the influence of thematic fit (and others constraints) in on-line sentence comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language 37: 283–312

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Millis M. L., Button S. B. (1989) The effect of polysemy on lexical decision time: Now you see it, now you don’t. Memory and Cognition 17: 141–147

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Monsell S., Doyle M. C., Haggard P. N. (1989) Effects of frequency on visual word recognition tasks: Where are they?. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 118: 42–71

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morrisson C. M., Ellis A. E. (1995) Roles of word frequency and age of acquisition in word naming and lexical decision. Journal of Experimental Psychology 21: 116–133

    Google Scholar 

  • Morrisson C. M., Ellis A. E. (2000) Real age of acquisition effects in word naming and lexical decision. British Journal of Psychology 91: 167–180

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morton J. (1969) Interaction of information in word recognition. Psychological Review 76: 165–178

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • New B., Pallier C., Brysbaert M., Ferrand L. (2004) Lexique 2: A new French lexical database. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments & Computers 36: 516–521

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Pecher D. (2001) Perception is a two-way junction: Feedback semantics in word recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 8(3): 545–551

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Perani D., Cappa S., Schnur T., Tettamanti M., Collina S., Della Rosa M., Fazio F. (1999) The neural correlates of verb and noun processing—A PET study. Brain 122: 2337–2344

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Perea M., Pollatsek A. (1998) The effects of neighborhood frequency in reading and lexical decision. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 24: 767–779

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Plaut D. C. (1997) Structure and function in the lexical system: Insights from distributed models of word reading and lexical decision. Language and Cognitive Processes 12: 765–805

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Preston K. A. (1935) The speed of word perception and its relation to reading ability. Journal of General Psychology 13: 199–203

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Prinzmetal W., Treiman R., Rho S. H. (1986) How to see a reading unit. Journal of Memory and Language 25: 461–475

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reyna V.F. (1987) Understanding verbs: Easy extension, hard comprehension. In: Ellis E. W. (eds) Progress in the psychology of language. Erlbaum, London, pp 301–316

    Google Scholar 

  • Rösler F., Streb J., Haan H. (2001) Event-related brain potentials evoked by verbs and nouns in a primed lexical decision task. Psychophysiology 38: 694–703

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rueckl J. G. (1995) Ambiguity and connectionist networks: Still settling into a solution—Comment on Joordens and Besner (1994). Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 21: 501–508

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schmauder A. R., Egan M. C. (1998) The influence of semantic fit on on-line sentence processing. Memory and Cognition 26(6): 1304–1312

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwanenflugel P. J., Shoben E. J. (1983) Differential context effects in the comprehension of abstract and concrete verbal materials. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 9: 82–102

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schwanenflugel P. J., Harnishfeger K. K., Stowe R. W. (1988) Context availability and lexical decisions for abstract and concrete words. Journal of Memory and Language 27: 499–520

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Segui J., Grainger J. (1990) Priming word recognition with orthographic neighbors: The effects of relative prime-target frequency. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human, Perception and Performance 16: 65–76

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sereno J. A. (1999) Hemispheric differences in grammatical class. Brain and Language 70: 13–28

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shapiro K., Caramazza A. (2003) The representation of grammatical categories in the brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 7: 201–206

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Siri S., Tettamanti M., Cappa S. F., Della Rosa P., Saccuman C., Scifo P., Vigliocco G. (2008) The neural substrate of naming events: Effects of processing demands but not grammatical class. Cerebral Cortex 18: 171–177

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Spoehr K. T., Smith E. E. (1973) The role of syllables in perceptual processing. Cognitive Psychology 5: 71–89

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stone G. O., Van Orden G. C. (1994) Building a resonance framework for word recognition using design and system principles. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 20: 1248–1268

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tabossi P., Spivey-Knowlton M., McRae K., Tanenhaus M. K. (1993) Semantics effects on syntactic ambiguity resolution: Evidence for a constraint-based resolution process. In: Umilta C., Moscovitch M. (eds) Attention & performance XV. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, NJ

    Google Scholar 

  • Tesnière L. (1959) Eléments de syntaxe structurale. Klincksieck, Paris

    Google Scholar 

  • Trueswell J. C., Tanenhaus M. K., Garnsey S. M. (1994) Semantic influences on parsing: Use of thematic information in syntactic ambiguity resolution. Journal of Memory and Language 33: 285–318

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tyler L., Russel R., Fadili J., Moss H. E. (2001) The neural representations of nouns and verbs: PET studies. Brain 124: 1619–1634

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Van Orden G. C., Bosman A. M. T., Goldinger S. D., Farrar W. T. (1997) A recurrent network account of reading, spelling and dyslexia. In: Donahoe J. W., Dorsel V. P. (eds) Neural network models of cognition: Biobehavioral foundations. Elsevier Sciences Publishers, Amsterdam, pp 522–538

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Van Orden G. C., Goldinger S. D. (1994) lndependence of form and function in cognitive systems explains perception of printed words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 20: 1269–1291

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vigliocco, G., Vinson, D. P., Druks, J., Barber, H., & Cappa, S. F. (2011). Nouns and verbs in the brain: A review of behavioral, electrophysiological, neuropsychological and imaging studies. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 3, 407–426.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Vigliocco G., Warren J., Siri S., Arcuili J., Scott S., Wise R. (2006) The role of semantics and grammatical class in the neural representation of words. Cerebral Cortex 16: 1790–1796

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Waters G. S., Seidenberg M. S. (1985) Spelling-sound effects in reading: Time course and decision criteria. Memory & Cognition 13: 557–572

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • West S. G., Aiken L. S., Krull J. L. (1996) Experimental personality designs: Analyzing categorical by continuous variable interactions. Journal of Personality 64: 1–48

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wolff P. (2003) Direct causation in the linguistic coding and individuation of causal events. Cognition 88: 1–48

    PubMed  Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Affiliations

  1. CeRCA, UMR CNRS 6234, 5 rue Théodore Lefebvre, 86000, Poitiers, France

    Françoise Cordier, Jean-Claude Croizet & François Rigalleau

Authors
  1. Françoise Cordier
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jean-Claude Croizet
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. François Rigalleau
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Françoise Cordier.

Additional information

The English text was edited by Tim Pownall.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Cordier, F., Croizet, JC. & Rigalleau, F. Comparing Nouns and Verbs in a Lexical Task. J Psycholinguist Res 42, 21–35 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-012-9202-x

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-012-9202-x

Keywords

  • Noun and verb processing
  • Frequency
  • LDT
  • Semantic variables