Depth of processing in a frequency judgment task

Abstract

In Experiment I, situational frequency judgments were obtained for words presented in either the same or a different type of print on each repetition. In contrast with previous findings showing a large effect on frequency judgments of variation in word meaning, orthographic variation produced no effect, suggesting that the representation of situational frequency involves semantic encoding but is relatively insensitive to changes in nonsemantic attributes. Experiment II used an incidental learning paradigm to compare frequency judgments as a function of semantic versus nonsemantic levels of processing. The results suggest that frequency judgments are dependent on the level of processing activated by the presented words.