Word Frequency and Predictability Dissociate in Naturalistic Reading.

ABSTRACT: Many studies of human language processing have shown that readers slow down at less frequent or less predictable words, but there is debate about whether frequency and predictability effects reflect separable cognitive phenomena: are cognitive operations that retrieve words from the mental lexicon based on sensory cues distinct from those that predict upcoming words based on context? Previous evidence for a frequency-predictability dissociation is mostly based on small samples (both for estimating predictability and frequency and for testing their effects on human behavior), artificial materials (e.g., isolated constructed sentences), and implausible modeling assumptions (discrete-time dynamics, linearity, additivity, constant variance, and invariance over time), which raises the question:

SUBMITTER: Shain C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10932590 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature