Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 6, 2025

Lexical Decision Task for Studying Written Word Recognition in Adults with and without Dementia or Mild Cognitive Impairment
Published on: June 25, 2019
Word class and word frequency in the MMN looking glass
Thomas Jacobsen1, Pamela Bäß2, Anja Roye3
1Experimental Psychology Unit, Helmut Schmidt University / University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany.
Abstract:
The effects of lexical meaning and lexical familiarity on auditory deviance detection were investigated by presenting oddball sequences of words, while participants ignored the stimuli. Stimulus sequences were composed of words that were varied in word class (nouns vs. functions words) and frequency of language use (high vs. low frequency) in a factorial design with the roles of frequently presented stimuli (Standards) and infrequently presented ones (Deviants) were fully crossed. Deviants elicited the Mismatch Negativity component of the event-related brain potential. Modulating effects of lexical meaning were obtained, revealing processing advantages for denotationally meaningful items. However, no effect of word frequency was observed. These results demonstrate that an apparently low-level function, such as auditory deviance detection utilizes information from the mental lexicon even for task-irrelevant stimuli.
Related Concept Videos
Frequency-dependent Selection
Mean From a Frequency Distribution
When such a data set is encountered,...
Relative Frequency Histogram
Expected Frequencies in Goodness-of-Fit Tests
How Data are Classified: Numerical Data
Quantitative data may be either discrete or continuous. All quantitative data that take on only specific numerical...
Relative Frequency Distribution

