Which Word Repetitions Do Readers Fail to Notice? Exploring Effects of Word Length, Word Class, Predictability, and...

Readers often fail to notice the presence of two adjacent instances of a short, high-frequency function word (e.g., Amanda jumped off the the swing and landed on her feet). In the present study, six online experiments investigated the effects of word length, word class (content vs. function word), predictability, and frequency on the rate at which readers fail to notice repetitions. No credible effects of word length, word class, or predictability were in evidence when other variables were controlled. On the other hand, the experiments revealed a very pronounced, but non-linear, effect of word frequency: Repetitions of words with a Zipf frequency up to about 6 were rarely missed (~10%), while repetitions of very high frequency (VHF) words, with a Zipf frequency above 6, were missed much more often, over 40% of the time in some conditions. Most of the words in this frequency range are short function words, but repetitions of VHF, four-letter content words (e.g., make, time) are also frequently missed. Theoretical implications of these results are considered.