Word frequency effects in speech production: Retrieval of syntactic information and of phonological form.

Abstract

In 7 experiments the authors investigated the locus of word frequency effects in speech production, Experiment 1 demonstrated a frequency effect in picture naming that was robust over repetitions, Experiments 2, 3, and 7 excluded contributions from object identification and initiation of articulation. Experiments 4 and 5 investigated whether the effect arises in accessing the syntactic word (lemma) by using a grammatical gender decision task. Although a frequency effect was found, it dissipated under repeated access to a word's gender. Experiment 6 tested whether the robust frequency effect arises in accessing the phonological form (lexeme) by having Ss translate words that produced homophones. Low-frequent homophones behaved like high-frequent controls, inheriting the accessing speed of their high-frequent homophone twins