Spelling monosyllabic English words.

We conducted a megastudy to examine the spelling of American English monosyllables with typewritten responses. We related both sublexical and lexical/semantic factors to spelling accuracy and reaction time (RT) for the first keypress and response duration for spelling 1,856 monophonic monosyllables. We found that (a) each of 13 predictor variables was significantly related to performance for at least one measure, (b) orthographic length was unrelated to the first key RT, but did relate to accuracy and response duration, (c) sound-spelling and spelling-sound consistency was related to performance, and in particular, onset consistency related to accuracy and first key RT, but was unrelated to response duration, (d) contextual diversity was consistently related to performance across all measures, and (e) age of acquisition (AoA) was related to all measures, but was related more to the first key RT than response duration. The results indicate that people begin the spelling process once they identify the first letter, and they continue to process the spelling pattern as the response unfolds. These results are best explained by a parallel-distributed-processing framework.

Relating emotional variables to recognition memory performance: a large-scale re-analysis of megastudy data.

The megastudy paradigm has become an important tool for cognitive science. One advantage to the megastudy is that existing data can be reanalysed in light of novel hypotheses. In the current study, recognition memory data for 4819 words were obtained. Multiple regression analyses assessed the influence of emotional variables on recognition memory performance (i.e., hits minus false alarm rates H-FAs) for the words. The predictor variables included valence, arousal, extremity of valence (the degree of negative or positive meaning), context valence (the degree to which a word typically appears in positive or negative contexts), context arousal (how emotionally reactive are contexts in which the word appears), and context extremity of valence (the degree of this typical emotional context). This study extended earlier work by implementing more thorough controls, maximising the number of words, assessing a more comprehensive set of emotional variables, and introducing the context extremity of valence variable. We found extremity of valence, context extremity of valence, context valence, and context arousal all were significant predictors of H-FAs. We interpret the results in terms of the dual-coding theory and hub and spoke model. We also explain how single-process models could accommodate the results in terms of context diversity.

How well imageability, concreteness, perceptual strength, and action strength predict recognition memory, lexical decision, and reading aloud performance.

We examined how well imageability, concreteness, perceptual strength, and action strength predicted recognition memory, lexical decision, and reading aloud performance. We used our imageability estimates [Cortese, M. J., & Fugett, A. (2004). Imageability ratings for 3,000 monosyllabic words. Behavior Methods and Research, Instrumentation, & Computers, 36(3), 384-387. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03195585; Schock, J., Cortese, M. J., & Khanna, M. M. (2012a). Imageability ratings for 3,000 disyllabic words. Behavior Research Methods, 44(2), 374-379. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-011-0162-0], concreteness norms of Brysbaert and colleagues [Brysbaert, M., Warriner, A. B., & Kuperman, V. (2014). Concreteness ratings for 40 thousand generally known English lemmas. Behavior Research Methods, 46(3), 904-911. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-013-0403-5], and perceptual and action strength ratings of Lynott and colleagues [Lynott, D., Connell, L., Brysbaert, M., Brand, J., & Carney, J. (2020). The lancaster sensorimotor norms: Multidimensional measures of perceptual and action strength for 40,000 English words. Behavior Research Methods, 52(3), 1271-1291. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-019-01316-z]. Our results indicate imageability is the best predictor, but methodological differences between ratings studies may contribute to the results. Surprisingly, action strength was negatively (albeit weakly) related to recognition memory. Analyses of item zRTs from the English lexicon project indicate these variables were not strong predictors of reading aloud or lexical decision performance. However, there is a small, consistent positive relationship between concreteness and zRTs (i.e., a facilitative abstractness effect). We believe researchers should either employ or control for imageability rather than concreteness, perceptual strength, or action strength when conducting recognition memory experiments. In addition, image-based codes generated at encoding strengthen memory traces but do not provide major inputs into reading aloud and lexical decision processes. Also, the facilitative abstractness effect on lexical decision and reading aloud zRTs may reflect more robust lexical representations for abstract words than concrete words, and that these two constructs are distinct.

AoA effects in reading aloud and lexical decision: Locating the (semantic) locus in terms of the number of backward semantic associations.

In the present study, we analyse data from the English Lexicon Project to assess the extent to which age of acquisition (AoA) effects on word processing stem from the number of semantic associations tied to a word. We show that the backward number of associates (bNoA; that is, the log transformed number of words that produce the target word in free association) is an important predictor of both lexical decision and reading aloud performance, and reduces the typical AoA effect as represented by subject ratings in both tasks. Although the AoA effect is reduced, it remains a significant predictor of performance above and beyond bNoA. We conclude that the semantic locus of AoA effects can be found in the number of backward connections to the word, and that the independent AoA effect is due to network plasticity. We discuss how computational models currently explain AoA effects, and how bNoA may affect their processing.

Word length negatively predicts recognition memory performance.

We examined how word length affects performance in three recognition memory experiments to resolve discrepant results in the literature for which there are theoretical implications. Shorter and longer words were equated on frequency, orthographic similarity, age of acquisition, and imageability. In Experiments 1 and 2, orthographic length (i.e., the number of letters in a word) was negatively related to hits minus false alarms. In Experiment 3, recognition performance did not differ between one- and two-syllable words that were equated on orthographic length. These results are compatible with single-process item-noise models that represent orthography in terms of features and in which memory representation strength is a product of the probabilities that the individual features have been stored. Longer words are associated with noisier representations than shorter words.

Incidental memory for colour word associates processed in colour naming and reading aloud tasks: is a blue ocean more memorable than a yellow one?

Congruency effects for colour word associates (e.g., ocean) have been reported in Stroop colour naming tasks. However, incidental memory for such words after word reading and colour naming tasks has not been examined. In the current study, participants incidentally recalled colour word associates (e.g., ocean) and neutral words (e.g., lawyer) immediately after naming their font colour (Experiment 1a) or reading them aloud (Experiment 1b). In both tasks, recall was better for congruent colour word associates (e.g., ocean appearing in blue) than incongruent colour word associates (e.g., ocean appearing in green) or neutral items (lawyer appearing in blue). This outcome is consistent with the idea that co-activation of a semantic colour code and a lexical representation strengthens the episodic memory representation and makes it more accessible.

Examining word processing via a megastudy of conditional reading aloud.

Results from a megastudy on conditional reading aloud for 2,145 monosyllabic words are reported. In stepwise regression analyses, the predictor variables accounted for over 66% of the reaction time (RT) variance. Linear mixed effect modelling on log RT indicated that every variable that related to RT in either reading aloud or lexical decision also related to RT in conditional reading aloud. Notably, differences among tasks were observed. Specifically, lexical decision showed stronger reliance on semantic information than the other two tasks, but conditional reading aloud also showed strong reliance on semantic information. Interestingly, feedback consistency affected reading aloud and conditional reading but not lexical decision. Pairwise correlations revealed that conditional reading aloud performance showed moderately strong relationships to lexical decision and reading aloud performance, whereas reading aloud and lexical decision performance were weakly related to each other. Conditional reading aloud produces reliable data that can be used to examine word processing. Theoretical challenges moving forward include how to best conceptualise and model processes involved in this task.

Participants shift response deadlines based on list difficulty during reading-aloud megastudies.

We tested the list homogeneity effect in reading aloud (e.g., Lupker, Brown, & Colombo, 1997) using a megastudy paradigm. In each of two conditions, we used 25 blocks of 100 trials. In the random condition, words were selected randomly for each block, whereas in the experimental condition, words were blocked by difficulty (e.g., easy words together, etc.), but the order of the blocks was randomized. We predicted that standard factors (e.g., frequency) would be more predictive of reaction times (RTs) in the blocked than in the random condition, because the range of RTs across the experiment would increase in the blocked condition. Indeed, we found that the standard deviations and ranges of RTs were larger in the blocked than in the random condition. In addition, an examination of items at the difficulty extremes (i.e., very easy vs. very difficult) demonstrated a response bias. In regression analyses, a predictor set of seven sublexical, lexical, and semantic variables accounted for 2.8% more RT variance (and 2.6% more zRT variance) in the blocked than in the random condition. These results indicate that response deadlines apply to megastudies of reading aloud, and that the influence of predictors may be underestimated in megastudies when item presentation is randomized. In addition, the CDP++ model accounted for 0.8% more variance in RTs (1.2% in zRTs) in the blocked than in the random condition. Thus, computational models may have more predictive power on item sets blocked by difficulty than on those presented in random order. The results also indicate that models of word processing need to accommodate response criterion shifts.

A mega recognition memory study of 2897 disyllabic words.

Following the studies by Cortese, Khanna, and Hacker (2010) on recognition memory for monosyllabic words, recognition memory estimates (e.g., hits, false alarms, hits minus false alarms) for 3000 disyllabic words were obtained from 120 subjects and 2897 of these words were analysed via multiple regression. Participants studied 30 lists of 50 words and were tested on 30 lists of 100 words. Of the subjects, 60 received a constant study time of 2000 ms per item and 60 studied items at their own pace. Specific predictor variables included log word frequency, word length, imageability, age of acquisition, orthographic similarity, and phonological similarity. The results were similar to those of Cortese et al. (2010). Specifically, in the analysis of hits minus false alarms, the entire set of predictor variables accounted for 34.9% of the variance. All predictor variables except phonological similarity were related to performance, with imageability, length, orthographic similarity and frequency all being strong predictors. These results are mostly compatible with the predictions made by single- and dual-process theories. However, across items hit rates were not correlated with false alarms. Given that most variables produced the standard mirror pattern, this latter outcome poses a major challenge for recognition memory theories.

Is reading-aloud performance in megastudies systematically influenced by the list context?

To examine megastudy context effects, 585 critical words, each with a different orthographic rime, were placed at the beginning or end of a 2614-word megastudy of reading aloud. Sixty participants (30 participants in each condition) responded to these words. Specific predictors examined for change between beginning and end conditions were frequency, length, feedforward rime consistency, feedforward onset consistency, orthographic neighbourhood size, age of acquisition (AoA), and imageability. While it took longer to respond to items at the end of the experiment than items at the beginning of the experiment, there was very little change in the effects of the specific variables assessed. Thus, there is little evidence of list context effects influencing the estimates of the predictor variables in large-scale megastudies.

A behavioral database for masked form priming.

Reading involves a process of matching an orthographic input with stored representations in lexical memory. The masked priming paradigm has become a standard tool for investigating this process. Use of existing results from this paradigm can be limited by the precision of the data and the need for cross-experiment comparisons that lack normal experimental controls. Here, we present a single, large, high-precision, multicondition experiment to address these problems. Over 1,000 participants from 14 sites responded to 840 trials involving 28 different types of orthographically related primes (e.g., castfe-CASTLE) in a lexical decision task, as well as completing measures of spelling and vocabulary. The data were indeed highly sensitive to differences between conditions: After correction for multiple comparisons, prime type condition differences of 2.90 ms and above reached significance at the 5% level. This article presents the method of data collection and preliminary findings from these data, which included replications of the most widely agreed-upon differences between prime types, further evidence for systematic individual differences in susceptibility to priming, and new evidence regarding lexical properties associated with a target word's susceptibility to priming. These analyses will form a basis for the use of these data in quantitative model fitting and evaluation and for future exploration of these data that will inform and motivate new experiments.

Comprehensive anterior segment normal values generated by rotating Scheimpflug tomography.

PURPOSE: To identify normal values for tomographic parameters that are considered useful in screening patients for refractive surgery. SETTING: Private center, Albany, New York, USA. DESIGN: Database study. METHODS: A Pentacam HR Scheimpflug system was used to examine 1 randomly selected eye of patients to determine normal values of 21 parameters considered the most clinically applicable for surgical screening. Normality of data was evaluated using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Statistical analyses were performed using the Student t test to compare means and the 2-paired sample Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Results are displayed in 95.0% and 97.5% confidence intervals (CIs). RESULTS: The study evaluated 341 adults. High-end outliers at the 97.5% CI were 46.1 diopters (D) for flat keratometry (K), 47.4 D for steep K, 3.4 D for astigmatism, 3.8 µm for anterior chamber depth, 4 µm for front apical elevation, 5 µm for front elevation at the thinnest point, and 12 µm for front elevation in the central 4.0 mm. Respective posterior elevation values were 7 µm, 13 µm, and 25 µm, with a progression index maximum of 1.53 and mean of 1.19, difference between apical and thinnest pachymetric reading of 7 µm, a maximum K of 48.2 D, and an inferior-superior ratio of 1.44 D. Low-end outliers were a maximum Ambrósio relational thickness of 335 and a mean of 425, minimum pachymetry of 479 µm, thickness at the apex of 481 µm, and central 4.0 mm corneal volume of 6.31 mm(3). CONCLUSION: Scheimpflug-derived corneal tomography identified key refractive surgery parameters that may be useful in screening refractive surgical patients.

The semantic priming project.

Speeded naming and lexical decision data for 1,661 target words following related and unrelated primes were collected from 768 subjects across four different universities. These behavioral measures have been integrated with demographic information for each subject and descriptive characteristics for every item. Subjects also completed portions of the Woodcock-Johnson reading battery, three attentional control tasks, and a circadian rhythm measure. These data are available at a user-friendly Internet-based repository ( http://spp.montana.edu ). This Web site includes a search engine designed to generate lists of prime-target pairs with specific characteristics (e.g., length, frequency, associative strength, latent semantic similarity, priming effect in standardized and raw reaction times). We illustrate the types of questions that can be addressed via the Semantic Priming Project. These data represent the largest behavioral database on semantic priming and are available to researchers to aid in selecting stimuli, testing theories, and reducing potential confounds in their studies.

Imageability and age of acquisition effects in disyllabic word recognition.

Imageability and age of acquisition (AoA) effects, as well as key interactions between these variables and frequency and consistency, were examined via multiple regression analyses for 1,936 disyllabic words, using reaction time and accuracy measures from the English Lexicon Project. Both imageability and AoA accounted for unique variance in lexical decision and naming reaction time performance. In addition, across both tasks, AoA and imageability effects were larger for low-frequency words than high-frequency words, and imageability effects were larger for later acquired than earlier acquired words. In reading aloud, consistency effects in reaction time were larger for later acquired words than earlier acquired words, but consistency did not interact with imageability in the reaction time analysis. These results provide further evidence that multisyllabic word recognition is similar to monosyllabic word recognition and indicate that AoA and imageability are valid predictors of word recognition performance. In addition, the results indicate that meaning exerts a larger influence in the reading aloud of multisyllabic words than monosyllabic words. Finally, parallel-distributed-processing approaches provide a useful theoretical framework to explain the main effects and interactions.

Age of acquisition estimates for 3,000 disyllabic words.

Age of acquisition (AoA) ratings based on a 1-7 scale for 3,000 disyllabic words were obtained from 32 participants. We demonstrate that these estimates are both reliable and valid. These estimates add to those collected on monosyllabic words and are of value to researchers interested in factors that contribute to word processing. They also can be used in regression analyses on measures obtained from large databases, and can be used in conjunction with imageability ratings for the same word corpus to differentiate AoA from imageability.

Imageability estimates for 3,000 disyllabic words.

We provide imageability estimates for 3,000 disyllabic words (as supplementary materials that may be downloaded with the article from www.springerlink.com ). Imageability is a widely studied lexical variable believed to influence semantic and memory processes (see, e.g., Paivio, 1971). In addition, imageability influences basic word recognition processes (Plaut, McClelland, Seidenberg, & Patterson, 1996). In fact, neuroimaging studies have suggested that reading high- and low-imageable words elicits distinct neural activation patterns for the two types e.g., Bedny & Thompson-Schill (Brain and Language 98:127-139, 2006; Graves, Binder, Desai, Conant, & Seidenberg NeuroImage 53:638-646, 2010). Despite the usefulness of this variable, imageability estimates have not been available for large sets of words. Furthermore, recent megastudies of word processing e.g., Balota et al. (Behavior Research Methods 39:445-459, 2007) have expanded the number of words that interested researchers can select according to other lexical characteristics (e.g., average naming latencies, lexical decision times, etc.). However, the dearth of imageability estimates (as well as those of other lexical characteristics) limits the items that researchers can include in their experiments. Thus, these imageability estimates for disyllabic words expand the number of words available for investigations of word processing, which should be useful for researchers interested in the influences of imageability both as an input and as an outcome variable.

Age of acquisition estimates for 1,208 ambiguous and polysemous words.

Age of acquisition (AoA) estimates are provided for 3,460 senses of 1,208 words (i.e., words with multiple meanings e.g., duck). The AoA rating estimates appear to be relatively consistent across participants. The Spearman-Brown split-half reliability coefficient is .95, while the correlations between each participant's ratings and the overall mean ratings yielded correlation coefficients between .325 to .794 with a mean of .69 (SD = .10). These estimates will be of use to those interested in: (a) the influence of AoA on word processing, (b) the influence of AoA on meaning access, (c) the structure of semantic memory, and (d) developmental trends in lexical ambiguity resolution. These AoA estimates can be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society's Web archive of norms, stimuli, and data at www.psychonomic.org/archive.

Do the effects of subjective frequency and age of acquisition survive better word frequency norms?

Megastudies with processing efficiency measures for thousands of words allow researchers to assess the quality of the word features they are using. In this article, we analyse reading aloud and lexical decision reaction times and accuracy rates for 2,336 words to assess the influence of subjective frequency and age of acquisition on performance. Specifically, we compare newly presented word frequency measures with the existing frequency norms of Kucera and Francis (1967), HAL (Burgess & Livesay, 1998), Brysbaert and New (2009), and Zeno, Ivens, Millard, and Duvvuri (1995). We show that the use of the Kucera and Francis word frequency measure accounts for much less variance than the other word frequencies, which leaves more variance to be "explained" by familiarity ratings and age-of-acquisition ratings. We argue that subjective frequency ratings are no longer needed if researchers have good objective word frequency counts. The effect of age of acquisition remains significant and has an effect size that is of practical relevance, although it is substantially smaller than that of the first phoneme in naming and the objective word frequency in lexical decision. Thus, our results suggest that models of word processing need to utilize these recently developed frequency estimates during training or setting baseline activation levels in the lexicon.

Recognition memory for 2,578 monosyllabic words.

In two studies, participants studied 30 lists of 50 words and were tested on 30 lists of 100 words. Item-level multiple regression analyses were conducted on hits, false alarms, hits minus false alarms, d', and C. The predictor variables were objective frequency, subjective frequency, imageability, orthographic similarity, phonological similarity, phonological-to-orthographic N (PON), age of acquisition (AoA), and word length. The regression equations accounted for 45.9% of the variance in hit rates, 14.9% of the variance in false alarm rates, and 29.2% of the variance in hits minus false alarms. Other noteworthy results were that: (a) hit rates positively correlated with false alarms, (b) objective frequency negatively correlated with both hit rates and false alarm rates, (c) AoA positively correlated with hit rates and negatively correlated with false alarm rates, (d) length negatively correlated with hit rates and positively correlated with false alarm rates, (e) orthographic uniqueness was positively correlated with hit rates and negatively correlated with false alarms, (f) PON positively correlated with false alarm rates, (g) imageability produced the typical mirror pattern, and (h) imageability and length were the strongest predictors of performance. Results were largely compatible with predictions made by single- and dual-process theories of recognition memory.

Age of acquisition ratings for 3,000 monosyllabic words.

Age of acquisition (AoA) ratings made on a 1-7 scale for 3,000 monosyllabic words were obtained from 32 participants across four blocks of 750 trials (two blocks of 750 trials were completed in each of 2 days). These results, as well as those of the regression analyses and reliability and validity measures that were originally reported in Cortese and Khanna (2007), are summarized here. Here, we also report high interblock correlations across items, indicating that participants were consistent in their ratings across blocks. The norms for the 3,000 words are important for researchers interested in word processing and may be downloaded from the Psychonomic Society's Norms, Stimuli, and Data archive at www.psychonomic.org/archive.