How Linearity and Structural Complexity Interact and Affect the Recognition of Italian Derived Words
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Updated: Mar 22, 2026

Lexical Decision Task for Studying Written Word Recognition in Adults with and without Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment
Published on: June 25, 2019
Franca Ferrari Bridgers1, Natalie Kacinik2
1Department of Speech and Theatre Arts, Queensborough Community College, CUNY, Queens, New York, NY, USA. fferrari@qcc.cuny.edu.
Abstract:
The majority of words in most languages consist of derived poly-morphemic words but a cross-linguistic review of the literature (Amenta and Crepaldi in Front Psychol 3:232-243, 2012) shows a contradictory picture with respect to how such words are represented and processed. The current study examined the effects of linearity and structural complexity on the processing of Italian derived words. Participants performed a lexical decision task on three types of prefixed and suffixed words and nonwords differing in the complexity of their internal structure. The processing of these words was indeed found to vary according to the nature of the affixes, the order in which they appear, and the type of information the affix encodes. The results thus indicate that derived words are not a uniform class and the best account of these findings appears to be a constraint-based or probabilistic multi-route processing model (e.g., Kuperman et al. in Lang Cogn Process 23:1089-1132, 2008; J Exp Psychol Hum Percept Perform 35:876-895, 2009; J Mem Lang 62:83-97, 2010).
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