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RESEARCH PRODUCT

When WORDS with Higher-frequency Neighbours Become Words with No Higher-frequency Neighbour (Or How to Undress the Neighbourhood Frequency Effect)

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Abstract “SATOR AREPO TENET OPERA ROTAS” (The ploughman, with his plough, manages the work) The influence of lexical similarity on word recognition has been discussed not only because of its theoretical impact but also because it is difficult to replicate. Among the multiplicity of the causes of this inconsistency one reason can be that different words were used in comparing words with higher-frequency neighbours (HFN) and words without HFN. In this experiment we chose French words for which the neighbourhood changes when they are written in UPPER case or in lower case. For example ‘DEFI’ has one HFN (‘DEMI’) but when it is displayed in lower case ‘defi’ has no HFN because ‘demi’ has no accent on the ‘e’. Reaction times in a lexical decision task for these words were compared with a control condition in which there was no change in the neighbourhood when the word typography was changed (‘NEON — neon’). The data showed a significant HFN effect: reaction times were longer on ‘DEFI’ than on ‘defi’ while no difference was observed between ‘NEON’ and ‘neon’. Moreover the simulations ran with the IA model (McClelland and Rumelhart, 1981) showed the same pattern of results. These data confirm the reality of an inhibitory mechanism during visual word recognition.