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Updated: May 7, 2026
08:08
Comparing the Frequency Effect Between the Lexical Decision and Naming Tasks in Chinese
Published on: April 1, 2016
Children's computation of complex linguistic forms: a study of frequency and imageability effects
Cristina D Dye1, Matthew Walenski, Elizabeth L Prado
1Centre for Research in Linguistics and Language Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom ; Brain and Language Lab, Department of Neuroscience, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, United States of America.
Plos One
|September 17, 2013
Summary
Children
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics and Developmental Psychology
- Investigating language acquisition and processing in children
Background:
- Understanding how children acquire and produce inflected word forms is crucial for language development research.
- Distinguishing between stored representations and compositional processes in morphology is a key debate in psycholinguistics.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the storage versus composition of regular and irregular past-tense forms in typically-developing children aged 8-12.
- To examine the influence of factors like frequency and imageability on the storage of inflected forms.
- To explore potential sex differences in the acquisition and processing of morphological forms.
Main Methods:
- Children aged 8-12 were tested on the production of regular and irregular past-tense forms.
- Storage was assessed using frequency and imageability effects, controlling for confounding variables.
- Sex was analyzed as a potential influencing factor on morphological processing.
Main Results:
- Irregular past-tense forms consistently showed evidence of storage (frequency/imageability effects) in all children and both sexes.
- Regular past-tense forms showed evidence of storage only in girls, unlike in boys.
- The storage of regular forms in girls was influenced by imageability, similar to adult patterns but with developmental differences noted.
Conclusions:
- Irregular inflected forms are reliably stored in memory across development and sexes.
- Regular inflected forms can be either composed or stored, with storage influenced by item- and subject-level factors, including sex and age.
- Developmental factors modulate the influence of imageability and frequency on the storage of regular forms, particularly in females.
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