Effects of Age-of-Acquisition in the Word-Fragment Completion Task
Evidence for an Orthographic Locus in Implicit Memory
Abstract
Barry, Hirsh, Johnston, and Williams (2001) found that Age-of-Acquisition (AoA) interacted with repetition priming in the picture naming task (greater priming for late- than for early-acquired words), and proposed that AoA might affect the stage of access to lexical-phonological representations. The present experiment examined the possibility that AoA may influence the retrieval of visual-orthographic information, by studying its effects in the Word-Fragment Completion Task (WFCT). Results showed that the overall percentages of correct completion were greater for early- than for late-acquired words, while repetition priming was higher for late- than for early-acquired items. Furthermore, the interaction between AoA and WFCT priming remained significant even when the fragments were exposed for only 4 s, reducing possible contributions from phonological and semantic processes. These findings suggest that AoA can affect implicit memory by facilitating the retrieval of the orthographic properties of the studied words.
References
(2002). Word naming times and psycholinguistic norms for Italian nouns. Behavior Research Methods, 34, 424–434.
(2001). Age of acquisition, word frequency, and the locus of repetition priming of picture naming. Journal of Memory and Language, 344, 350–375.
(1996). Functional mapping of human memory using PET: Comparisons of conceptual and perceptual tasks. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 50, 42–56.
(2001). Transfer across modality in perceptual implicit memory. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 8, 147–154.
(1990). Implicit memory and test awareness. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 16, 404–416.
(1987). First in, first out: Word learning age and spoken word frequency as predictors of word familiarity and word naming latency. Memory & Cognition, 15, 208–216.
(2006). The effect of age of acquisition: Partly frequency related, partly frequency independent. Visual Cognition, 13, 992–1011.
(2000). Age-of acquisition effects in semantic processing tasks. Acta Psychologica, 104, 215–226.
(2005). Age of acquisition effects on word generation. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 17, 161–177.
(2006). Age-of-acquisition effects in picture naming: Are they structural and/or semantic in nature? Visual Cognition, 13, 864–883.
(2009). Age of acquisition affects early orthographic processing during Chinese character recognition. Acta Psychologica, 130, 196–203.
(2006). Frequency effects in spoken and visual word recognition: Evidence from dual-task methodologies. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 32, 104–119.
(1994). Contributions of surface and conceptual information to performance on implicit and explicit tasks. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 20, 864–875.
(2001). Time course of frequency effects in spoken-word recognition: Evidence from eye movements. Cognitive Psychology, 42, 317–367.
(2007). Age of acquisition affects object recognition: Evidence from visual duration thresholds. Acta Psychologica, 125, 301–318.
(2008). Age of acquisition and word frequency effects in picture naming: A dual-task investigation. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 34, 282–301.
(1998). Separate effects of word frequency and age of acquisition in recognition and recall. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 24, 284–298.
(2010). Experimental Psychology: A note on statistical analysis. Experimental Psychology, 57, 1–4.
(2005). Effects of depth-of-processing and ageing on word-stem and word-fragment implicit memory tasks: Test of the lexical-processing hypothesis. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 17, 785–802.
(1999a). Age-of-acquisition and frequency effects in speeded word naming. Cognition, 73, 27–36.
(1999b). Age of acquisition, word frequency, and the role of phonology in the lexical decision task. Memory & Cognition, 27, 592–602.
(2010). Spatial selection and target identification are separable processes in visual search. Journal of Vision, 10, 1–12.
(2004). Age of acquisition and the cumulative-frequency hypothesis: A review of the literature and a new multi-task investigation. Acta Psychologica, 115, 43–67.
(1980). Age-of-acquisition, imagery, concreteness, familiarity, and ambiguity measures for 1,944 words. Behavior Research Methods, 12, 395–427.
(2000). Multilevel modeling for binary data. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 441–462.
(1989). Is priming in fragment completion based on a “traceless” memory system. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15, 941–956.
(2007). Multilevel models for the experimental psychologist: Foundations and illustrative examples. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 101–117.
(1980). The role of nonsemantic information in memory: Orthographic distinctiveness effects on retention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 109, 49–74.
(1981). On the relationship between autobiographical memory and perceptual learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 110, 306–340.
(2006). Age of acquisition and lexical processing. Visual Cognition, 13, 789–845.
(2005). Age-of-acquisition effects in word and picture identification. Psychological Bulletin, 131, 684–712.
(2011). Cross-structural priming. Prepositional phrase attachment primes relative clause attachment. Experimental Psychology, 58, 227–234.
(2010). Objective age of acquisition for 223 Italian words: Norms and effects on picture naming speed. Behavior Research Methods, 42, 126–133.
(1996). Word frequency effects on recall, recognition, and word fragment completion tests. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 22, 132–142.
(2004). The effects of age of acquisition on object perception. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 16, 417–439.
(1977). Levels of processing versus transfer appropriate processing. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 16, 519–533.
(1997). Age of acquisition norms for a large set of object names and their relation to adult estimates and other variables. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 50, 528–559.
(1995). The role of word frequency and age of acquisition in word naming and lexical decision. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 21, 116–133.
(1999). How to deal with the “language-as-fixed-effect fallacy”: Common misconceptions and alternative solutions. Journal of Memory and Language, 41, 416–426.
(1996). Perceptual effects on remembering: Recollective processes in picture recognition memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 22, 365–377.
(1993). Direct comparison of four implicit memory tests. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 19, 765–776.
(1990). Implicit memory: Retention without remembering. American Psychologist, 45, 1043–1056.
(1993). Implicit memory in normal human subjects. In , Handbook of neuropsychology (pp. 63–131). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier, North-Holland.
(1992). Direct comparison of two implicit memory tests: Word fragment and word stem completion. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 18, 1251–1269.
(1977). Frequency and repetition effects in lexical memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 3, 1–17.
(1998). Priming and the brain. Neuron, 20, 185–195.
(1993). Implicit memory: A selective review. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 16, 159–182.
(1994). What are the memory systems of 1994? In , Memory systems 1994 (pp. 1–38). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
(1985). Separable effects of factors on speed and accuracy: Memory scanning, lexical decision, and choice tasks. Psychological Bulletin, 97, 530–546.
(1989). A distributed, developmental model of word recognition and naming. Psychological Review, 96, 523–568.
(2010). Effects of divided attention in the word-fragment completion task with unique and multiple solutions. European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 22, 18–45.
(2011). Attention and implicit memory: The role of the activation of multiple representations. Experimental Psychology, 58, 110–116.
(1969). Memory-scanning: Mental processes revealed by reaction-time experiments. American Scientist, 57, 421–457.
(1993). The time course of perceptual and conceptual contributions to word fragment completion priming. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 19, 1010–1023.
(1998). Modelling clustered data in autobiographical memory research: The multilevel approach. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 12, 339–357.
(2002). The nature of recollection and familiarity: A review of 30 years of research. Journal of Memory and Language, 46, 441–517.
