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The influence of semantic neighbours on visual word recognition
Author(s) -
Yates Mark
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of research in reading
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.077
H-Index - 51
eISSN - 1467-9817
pISSN - 0141-0423
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2010.01465.x
Subject(s) - lexical decision task , semantics (computer science) , task (project management) , word recognition , psychology , natural language processing , word (group theory) , lexical semantics , semantic memory , semantic property , cognitive psychology , computer science , artificial intelligence , cognition , linguistics , lexical item , reading (process) , philosophy , management , neuroscience , economics , programming language
Although it is assumed that semantics is a critical component of visual word recognition, there is still much that we do not understand. One recent way of studying semantic processing has been in terms of semantic neighbourhood (SN) density, and this research has shown that semantic neighbours facilitate lexical decisions. However, it is not clear if this facilitation reflects actual word recognition processes or is instead due to participant strategies used during the lexical decision task. To address this, the current research used college students as participants and tested the effect of SN density using the semantic categorisation and progressive demasking tasks. Both of these tasks require word identification and are not susceptible to the participant strategies that are seen when using the lexical decision task. The results show that SN facilitates responding in both tasks, indicating that SN effects are not due to task‐specific strategies.