Abstract
Two experiments were performed to investigate the roles of root morpheme frequency and word frequency in the encoding of prefixed words in sentence context. Two alternative words, which were equated on other indices but differed with respect to either root morpheme frequency or word frequency, were embedded in the same sentence frame. In Experiment 1, there was a significant root morpheme frequency effect on gaze duration but only a marginal word frequency effect. Post hoc analyses indicated that word length influenced both effects, with word frequency effects predominating for shorter words and root morpheme effects predominating for longer words. In Experiment 2, word length was also manipulated. There was a significant root frequency effect for longer prefixed words and a significant word frequency effect for shorter prefixed words. The results were best explained by a dual-route model (with competing whole-word access and compositional routes), in which increasing word length inhibited the whole-word process, relative to the compositional route.
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The research was supported by Grants HD17246 and HD26765 from the National Institutes of Health. This work was part of the first author’s Ph.D. work, and she thanks the members of her dissertation committee (Keith Rayner, Charles Clifton, and Shelley Velleman) for their valuable input.
Note—This article was accepted by the previous editorial team, when Colin M. MacLeod was Editor.
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Niswander-Klement, E., Pollatsek, A. The effects of root frequency, word frequency, and length on the processing of prefixed English words during reading. Memory & Cognition 34, 685–702 (2006). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193588
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03193588