Lexical frequency and neighborhood density effects on the recognition of native and Spanish-accented words by native English and Spanish listeners

2005 ◽  
Vol 117 (2) ◽  
pp. 896-907 ◽  
Author(s):  
Satomi Imai ◽  
Amanda C. Walley ◽  
James E. Flege
Keyword(s):  
Neighborhood Density ◽  
Lexical Frequency ◽  
Density Effects

scholarly journals The influence of part-word phonotactic probability/neighborhood density on word learning by preschool children varying in expressive vocabulary

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 628-643 ◽  
Author(s):  
HOLLY L. STORKEL ◽  
JILL R. HOOVER
Keyword(s):  
Preschool Children ◽  
Probability Density ◽  
Word Learning ◽  
Picture Naming ◽  
Neighborhood Density ◽  
Expressive Vocabulary ◽  
Phonotactic Probability ◽  
Density Effects ◽  
Floor Effects

ABSTRACTThe goal of this study was to examine the influence of part-word phonotactic probability/neighborhood density on word learning by preschool children with normal vocabularies that varied in size. Ninety-eight children (age 2 ; 11–6 ; 0) were taught consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) nonwords orthogonally varying in the probability/density of the CV (i.e. body) and VC (i.e. rhyme). Learning was measured via picture naming. Children with the lowest expressive vocabulary scores showed no effect of either CV or VC probability/density, although floor effects could not be ruled out. In contrast, children with low or high expressive vocabulary scores demonstrated sensitivity to part-word probability/density with the nature of the effect varying by group. Children with the highest expressive vocabulary scores displayed yet a third pattern of part-word probability/density effects. Taken together, word learning by preschool children was influenced by part-word probability/density but the nature of this influence appeared to depend on the size of the lexicon.

scholarly journals Eye Movement Measures of Within-Language and Cross-Language Activation During Reading in Monolingual and Bilingual Children and Adults: A Focus on Neighborhood Density Effects

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Veronica Whitford ◽  
Marc F. Joanisse
Keyword(s):  
Young Adults ◽  
Word Recognition ◽  
Eye Movement ◽  
Neighborhood Density ◽  
Bilingual Children ◽  
Orthographic Neighborhood ◽  
Density Effects ◽  
Orthographic Neighborhood Density ◽  
Cross Language ◽  
L1 And L2

We used eye movement measures of first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) paragraph reading to investigate how the activation of multiple lexical candidates, both within and across languages, influences visual word recognition in four different age and language groups: (1) monolingual children; (2) monolingual young adults; (3) bilingual children; and (4) bilingual young adults. More specifically, we focused on within-language and cross-language orthographic neighborhood density effects, while controlling for the potentially confounding effects of orthographic neighborhood frequency. We found facilitatory within-language orthographic neighborhood density effects (i.e., words were easier to process when they had many vs. few orthographic neighbors, evidenced by shorter fixation durations) across the L1 and L2, with larger effects in children vs. adults (especially the bilingual ones) during L1 reading. Similarly, we found facilitatory cross-language neighborhood density effects across the L1 and L2, with no modulatory influence of age or language group. Taken together, our findings suggest that word recognition benefits from the simultaneous activation of visually similar word forms during naturalistic reading, with some evidence of larger effects in children and particularly those whose words may have differentially lower baseline activation levels and/or weaker links between word-related information due to divided language exposure: bilinguals.

Phonetic and lexical gradience in Polish prefixed words

2012 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 317-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iwona Kraska-Szlenk, ◽  
Marzena Żygis,
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representation ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Functional Explanation ◽  
Language Usage ◽  
Lexical Frequency ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Density Effects ◽  
Phonetic Cues ◽  
Phonetic Features ◽  
Prefixed Words

AbstractThe article focuses on the gradient phonetic effects occurring at the prefix-stem boundary in Polish and their phonological interpretation. The environment of a consonant-final prefix followed by a vowel-initial stem exhibits remarkable variation as to the presence of specific phonetic cues, ranging from their being completely absent or very weak to the presence of strong ones, such as the occurrence of a glottal stop combined with partial devoicing of the prefix-final consonant and full glottalization of the stem-initial vowel. A significant correlation is observed between the number of the phonetic cues marking the morphological boundary and the lexical frequency, as well as certain other factors. The gradient character of the prefix-stem juncture in Polish is independently motivated by the speakers' attitudes as revealed in a psycholinguistic test, which demonstrates that the low-level phonetic features contribute to the mental representation of language grammar. The discussion of the data is conducted in the larger context of Polish sandhi, phonotactics and neighbourhood density effects, providing a functional explanation of the analysed problem and of certain prefix-suffix asymmetries. All the evidence in the article points to the importance of language usage criteria in shaping a language grammar and to the necessity of recognizing this fact in linguistic analysis.

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