The influence of frequency across the time course of morphological processing: Evidence from the transposed-letter effect

• Published in: Journal of cognitive psychology (Hove, England) Vol. 25; no. 7; pp. 781 - 799
• Main Authors: Luke, Steven G., Christianson, Kiel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon Routledge 01.11.2013; Taylor & Francis; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Compound Words; Eye Movements; Eye tracking; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Inflection; Language; Lexical Access; Masked priming; Morphemes; Morphological Processing; Morphology; Production and perception of written language; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Transposed-letter effect; Word Frequency; Human; Word; Word frequency; Priming effect; Inflection; Cognition; Transposed-letter effect; Experimental study; Eye movement; Letter; Transposition; Masked priming; Reading; Language; Morphology; Masking; Time analysis; Eye tracking; Lexical access
• ISSN: 2044-5911; 2044-592X
• DOI: 10.1080/20445911.2013.832682

The role that morphology plays in lexical access has been the subject of much debate, as has the influence of word frequency on morphological processing. The effect of frequency on morphological processing across the time course of lexical access was investigated using the transposed-letter effect. The results of two experiments (one masked-priming experiment and one eye-tracking experiment) outline a process in which morphological structure can be detected quickly and independently of frequency. The present study is also the first to show that transpositions that cross morpheme boundaries can be as disruptive as letter substitutions in inflected words, replicating earlier results with derived and compound words.