Further results on the duration of infrequent and frequent words.

Abstract

In a study reported at the last meeting of the Society, subjects produced longer durations when reading lists of infrequent words than ones with frequent words. This was in spite of the fact that the words contained exactly the same phonemes by virtue of being homophones (e.g., ‘‘right’’ and ‘‘rite’’). As in that study, subjects in the present experiment read rehearsed lists as quickly as they could, but this time, the two frequency types occurred in each list. Preliminary results show that, as before, the infrequent items were longer in duration, but the magnitude was reduced compared to the earlier results. Since these were the same subjects in the same session, direct comparisons are possible. Several explanations for the difference will be explored. First, the frequency category of the following item might affect duration as well. This effect, found in lexical access studies, may play a role here even though the lists were rehearsed. Second, subjects may simply have spoken more quickly in the later part of the session; the previous results had suggested that the frequency effect did not hold for the fastest talkers. Finally, it may simply be that by the time the subjects had uttered these words ten times, they were all temporarily higher in frequency. Whatever the explanation for the difference, the continued presence of an effect suggests, as before, that a link to the lexicon is maintained throughout production. [Work supported by NIH Grant No. DC-00825.]