Abstract
What makes some words more memorable than others? Words can vary in many dimensions, and a variety of lexical, semantic, and affective properties have previously been associated with variability in recall performance. Free recall data were used from 147 participants across 20 experimental sessions from the Penn Electrophysiology of Encoding and Retrieval Study (PEERS) data set, across 1,638 words. Here, I consider how well 20 different word properties—across lexical, semantic, and affective dimensions—relate to free recall. Semantic dimensions, particularly animacy (better memory for living), usefulness (with respect to survival; better memory for useful), and size (better memory for larger) demonstrated the strongest relationships with recall probability. These key results were then examined and replicated in the free recall data from Lau, Goh, and Yap (Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 71, 2207–2222, 2018), which had 532 words and 116 participants. This comprehensive investigation of a variety of word memorability demonstrates that semantic and function-related psycholinguistic properties play an important role in verbal memory processes.
Highlights
What makes some words more memorable than others? Words can vary in many dimensions, and a variety of lexical, semantic, and affective properties have previously been associated with variability in recall performance
Free-recall probability was calculated from a large-scale verbal memory study and compared with an array of lexical, semantic, and affective word properties to explore which properties best explain word memorability
A key focus of this work is to conduct a broad comparison of psycholinguistic factors that may relate to word memorability, without a preconceived theory to support; for instance, Nairne et al (2013) built upon Rubin and Friendly (1986) with an a priori emphasis on the influence of animacy on memory
Summary
What makes some words more memorable than others? Words can vary in many dimensions, and a variety of lexical, semantic, and affective properties have previously been associated with variability in recall performance. Free-recall probability was calculated from a large-scale verbal memory study and compared with an array of lexical, semantic, and affective word properties to explore which properties best explain word memorability.
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