Comparing the Frequency Effect Between the Lexical Decision and Naming Tasks in Chinese.

Area of Science:

• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive Psychology
• Computational Linguistics

Background:

• The frequency effect is crucial for understanding lexical access in psycholinguistic research.
• Typically, studies use only one experimental task (e.g., lexical decision or naming) to investigate lexical access.
• Integrating multiple tasks can provide a more robust understanding of cognitive processes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce and validate an approach combining the lexical decision task (LDT) and naming task.
• To investigate the frequency effect in Chinese character and word recognition using both tasks.
• To compare lexical access patterns between Chinese and alphabetic systems.

Main Methods:

• Experiment 1: Manipulated frequency and regularity of Chinese characters.
• Experiment 2: Manipulated word frequency and leading character regularity of Chinese two-character words.
• Compared frequency effects between LDT and naming tasks across both experiments.

Main Results:

• Experiment 1 (characters): Larger frequency effect in naming task vs. LDT; equivalent effects for regular characters.
• Experiment 2 (words): Smaller frequency effect in naming task vs. LDT.
• Observed distinct frequency effect patterns in Chinese compared to alphabetic systems.

Conclusions:

• Combining LDT and naming tasks offers a more complete picture of character/word recognition.
• Phonological influences and task demands differentially affect lexical access in Chinese.
• Results highlight the importance of task selection in psycholinguistic research.