Date of Award
2011
Publication Type
Master Thesis
Degree Name
M.A.Sc.
Department
Psychology
Keywords
Psychology.
Supervisor
Buchanan, Lori (Psychology)
Rights
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Visual word recognition response times are known to be influenced by such factors as concreteness (reviewed e.g., Paivio, 1991; Schwanenflugel, 1991) and Semantic Neighbourhood Density (SND; Buchanan, Westbury & Burgess, 2001), which is the proximity of words related by meaning to a target word in semantic memory. Through the use of two standard lexical decision task experiments, the goal of this study was to compare response times for abstract words versus concrete words, while also varying levels of SND using two different stimulus sets. The main and interactive effects of these variables were demonstrated, though conclusions were primarily made based on the data from Experiment 2 because of the use of a more controlled stimulus set, as well as a speed-accuracy trade-off evident in the Experiment 1 data. This investigation represents the first attempt to explore the effects of SND on the visual recognition of abstract words.
Recommended Citation
Danguecan, Ashley, "The Effects of Concreteness and Semantic Neighbourhood Density on Visual Word Recognition" (2011). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 225.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/225