Visual word recognition of morphologically complex words: effects of prime word and root frequency

Hélène Giraudo, Karla Orihuela
2015 The European Network on Word Structure  
The present study aims to investigate the relative role of the surface frequencies (i.e., token frequencies) in base word recognition. A masked priming experiment was carried using two types of suffixed French primes: the effects of words having a surface frequency (SF) higher than their base (e.g., cigarette -cigare) were compared with those produced by word primes having a SF lower than their base (e.g., froideur-froid 'coldnesscold'). Results show that HighSF are more efficient primes than
more » ... wSF relative to both orthographic and unrelated priming baselines. This suggests that despite a highly salient base, whole words matter more than morphemes during the early processes of lexical access.
dblp:conf/networds/GiraudoO15 fatcat:4di6zo3a2nf7hdkhjvxd5gcvai