Antecedent frequency effects during the processing of pronouns
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Updated: Jun 29, 2026

Comparing the Frequency Effect Between the Lexical Decision and Naming Tasks in Chinese
Published on: April 1, 2016
Roger P G van Gompel1, Asifa Majid
1Department of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN, Scotland, UK. r.p.g.vangompel@dundee.ac.uk
Abstract:
An eye-movement reading experiment investigated whether the ease with which pronouns are processed is affected by the lexical frequency of their antecedent. Reading times following pronouns with infrequent antecedents were faster than following pronouns with frequent antecedents. We argue that this is consistent with a saliency account, according to which infrequent antecedents are more salient than frequent antecedents. The results are not predicted by accounts which claim that readers access all or part of the lexical properties of the antecedent during the processing of pronouns.
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