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Published on: October 11, 2018
Which Word Repetitions Do Readers Fail to Notice? Exploring Effects of Word Length, Word Class, Predictability, and
Korrina Bentley1, Adrian Staub1
1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA.
Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology (2006)
|July 21, 2026
Summary
Readers frequently miss repeated high-frequency words, especially those with a Zipf frequency above 6. This reading phenomenon impacts comprehension and is more common for function words and short content words.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Psycholinguistics
- Reading Science
Background:
- Readers often overlook adjacent repeated words, particularly high-frequency function words.
- This phenomenon, known as a 'repetition blindness,' can affect reading comprehension.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate factors influencing the rate of missed word repetitions.
- To examine the effects of word length, word class, predictability, and word frequency on repetition blindness.
Main Methods:
- Six online experiments were conducted.
- Varied word length, word class (content vs. function), predictability, and frequency.
- Measured the rate at which readers failed to notice adjacent word repetitions.
Main Results:
- No significant effects of word length, word class, or predictability were found.
- A pronounced, non-linear effect of word frequency was observed.
- Repetitions of words with Zipf frequency > 6 were missed significantly more often (over 40%) than lower-frequency words (~10%).
Conclusions:
- Word frequency is a critical factor in repetition blindness.
- High-frequency words, including function words and short content words, are more susceptible to being missed when repeated.
- Findings have implications for understanding reading processes and potential reading difficulties.
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