Frequency and Repetition Effects in Lexical Memory

Don L. Scarborough, Charles Cortese, Hollis S. Scarborough · Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance · 1977 · cognitive-psychology · 10.1037/0096-1523.3.1.1 · record scarborough1977-lexical
tag layer · index · concepts · authors · עברית

Where this record's text came from. faceted 2026-08 by reading the locally held text (pdftext); every evidence string verified as an exact substring of that text before merging. Replication status is 'contested' on the paper's own testimony: it states that two recent studies using a similar paradigm differ from several of its conclusions, and it argues at length about why. The PDF extraction has dropped many inter-word spaces and preserved end-of-line hyphenation ('thereis', 'la-tency', 'explana-tions'); every quote is reproduced with those artefacts intact, including the pound sign that the OCR substituted for the t-statistic symbol. Forbach, Stanners and Hochaus appear both as a target the paper builds on and as one of the two reports it says diverge from its conclusions. 2026-08-19 and 2026-08-25 schema-0.3 passes: every quote verified as an exact substring of the staged text and anchored at merge time; concept terms verified present; every edge endpoint an existing node.

How to read this page. The article itself is not reproduced here — this paper is not cleared for redistribution, so what follows is the tag layer alone. The evidence sentences are withheld with the article. The table at the foot lists every tag the record carries; each row names the facet it belongs to, and the whose words column says whether the tag records the paper's own wording or the tagger's sentence about the paper. Every tag links to each other paper in the corpus carrying it. The machine-readable edition of the same thing is the TEI file beside this one, where the tags live in standOff, and the article is at its publisher via the link below. When we have changed our mind. Some entries in the table begin with a word in capitals and the reason for it. EVIDENCE CORRECTED — the finding still stands, but we had quoted the wrong sentence from the paper, and the quotation has been replaced with the right one. RETRACTED — the entry itself was wrong; it stays on the page, marked, with the reason, rather than being deleted. WITHDRAWN AND REPLACED — the entry was wrong, and a corrected version of it appears in the entries below. Each mark carries its own reason, in brackets, because the reasons differ from one entry to the next. An entry we have WITHDRAWN is removed from this page and kept in the record, with its reason. A line reading Audit and a date is a later re-reading of the entry against its whole sentence: DOUBTFUL means it was kept, and the reason says what is loose about it. Quotation marks inside the tagger's sentence. Where a tag is the tagger's own sentence, a phrase in quotation marks inside it is borrowed from the paper — the tagger's wording around it is not. The paper's own sentence is the evidence quote for that row; on this page it is withheld with the article, and the article is at its publisher. Nothing inside quotation marks anywhere on this page is ours: if it is quoted, it is the paper's. Whose words a concept carries. A concept entry records a term the paper itself uses, so the term, the sense given for it, and its evidence are the paper's own words, quoted where the paper fixes them. This is the opposite of a sense entry in the tag table, which is the tagger's sentence about how the paper uses a term. Where a concept entry could not be grounded in the paper's words, the entry says so on its own row.

Other fields define these differently the same word, defined another way in another discipline
priming 2 fields · repetition priming 2 fields · statistical-significance 2 fields · response latency 2 fields · variance 2 fields

Tags on this paper

Every tag the record carries, each linking to every other paper in the corpus that carries it. A tag appears here whether or not its words occur in the article — the spans below are only the ones a sentence in this paper licenses. Of the 9 concept tags on this paper, 4 are grounded in a quoted sentence. 2 carry the tagger's gloss of what the term means in this paper, which is not something the article can license.

priming repetition priming lexical decision word frequency association secondariness modulation frequency effect repetition repetition priming: a prior encounter with a word leaves a lasting memory trace that speeds its later recognition, reducing the usual word-frequency effect in lexical decision response time lexical memory high-frequency low-frequency recency reaction time lexical decision task word-frequency effect subjective lexicon response latency ANOVA analysis of variance degrees-of-freedom hypothesis-testing mean average of p-value statistical-significance variance behavioural-experiment

Legend

relation to other work	`claim_relations`	how this paper stands to another: agrees, contradicts, extends, qualifies
claim type	`claim_type`	the shape of the claim: existence, mechanism, method, critique, prediction, null
concept edge	`concept_edges`	an asserted relation between two concepts, with the sentence asserting it
concept	`concepts`	an idea the paper works with, quoted where the paper uses it
content tag	`content_tags`	a finding, definition, quantity, statistic or variable named in the paper
control	`controls`	an experiment run to eliminate a rival explanation
limitation	`limitations`	what the paper says its evidence cannot support
mechanism	`mechanisms`	how the reported effect is said to come about
method	`method`	how the paper produced its evidence
phenomenon	`phenomenon`	the effect or regularity under study
sense	`senses`	a distinct use of a term, quoted where the paper fixes it

The paper

The full text is not reproduced here. This article is not cleared for redistribution, so the page carries the tag layer only. Its evidence sentences are withheld; the grounding status remains with each tag, and the article itself is at https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.3.1.1. The reading view exists for the papers whose licence permits it.

Every tag on this page

claim_relations 4 · claim_type 1 · concept_edges 1 · concepts 4 · content_tags 23 · controls 2 · limitations 4 · mechanisms 1 · method 1 · phenomenon 1 · senses 4

Relations on this page carry a quotation for the claim. Where a relation was separately evidenced — and so tested against the vocabulary for its type — the row says so; none of 1 relation here carry that mark. The rest are the tagger’s reading of the sentence quoted beside them.

facet	tag	field	conf.	whose words
claim_type	existence Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`claim_type`		the paper's words
phenomenon	repetition priming in lexical decision Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`phenomenon`		the paper's words
method	behavioural-experiment Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: behavioural-experiment	`method`		the paper's words
mechanisms	mechanisms Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. Update, 15 September 2026: CLEARED evidence status='quote-not-in-current-staged-text' - the quote now locates in the current staged text, so the condition the marker recorded no longer holds. also in: repetition priming: a prior encounter with a word leaves a lasting memory trace that speeds its later recognition, reducing the usual word-frequency effect in lexical decision	`mechanisms[0]`	0.85	the tagger's words
limitations	the paper cannot localize the repetition effect to a specific processing stage Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. Update, 15 September 2026: CLEARED evidence status='quote-not-in-current-staged-text' - the quote now locates in the current staged text, so the condition the marker recorded no longer holds.	`limitations[0]`	0.85	the tagger's words
limitations	Experiment 1's failure to find a lag effect for words may simply reflect low power rather than the absence of an effect. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`limitations[1]`	0.85	the tagger's words
limitations	The long-lag repetitions embedded in Experiment 2 involved too few stimuli and a design that could not exclude practice effects. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`limitations[2]`	0.85	the tagger's words
limitations	Generalisation of the repetition account beyond the lexical decision task, for example to language production, still requires evidence. Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`limitations[3]`	0.85	the tagger's words
controls	stimuli were counterbalanced across subjects for lag and for case Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. eliminates: that a repetition effect is carried by the particular items at a particular lag, or by a change of letter case · outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation): held	`controls[0]`	0.95	the tagger's words
controls	the design was intended to separate repetition from practice, and the paper reports that it could not do so completely Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. eliminates: that the repetition effect is general practice at the task rather than memory for the particular item · outcome (stated by the tagger, no quotation): failed	`controls[1]`	0.95	the tagger's words
concepts	lexical decision Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: lexical decision	`concepts[2]`		the paper's words
concepts	word frequency Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: word frequency	`concepts[3]`		the paper's words
concepts	frequency effect Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: frequency effect	`concepts[7]`	0.95	the paper's words
concepts	repetition Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: repetition	`concepts[8]`	0.95	the paper's words
senses	THE DISSOCIATION IS IN THE DECAY, NOT THE SIZE, AND THAT IS WHY IT IS EVIDENCE. For WORDS: `Quotation withheld` For NONWORDS the same measure falls from 75 msec to 18. Nearly identical benefit at zero lag; utterly different survival. Same task, same lags, same subjects - the only difference is lexicality, and a short-term store cannot produce that pattern because it would decay for both Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`senses[0]`	0.95	the tagger's words
senses	AND THE HEADLINE IS THAT REPETITION EATS THE FREQUENCY EFFECT: `in the word-nonword lexical decision task, Quotation withheld.` Showing a low-frequency word once narrows the gap that word frequency opens - so the field's most reliable variable is partly a fact about recent exposure, which is the claim that makes this paper matter to a corpus about what terms mean Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`senses[1]`	0.95	the tagger's words
senses	THE REASONING IS ADDITIVE-FACTORS AND THE SCHEMA CANNOT HOLD IT: `If word frequency and word repetition each affect DIFFERENT stages of processing in the word-nonword task, their effects should be ADDITIVE` - and they interact, so `the repetition effect and word frequency both affect a common stage of processing.` Two variables located in the same mechanism by the shape of their interaction. There is no edge type for `these share a mechanism` - not causes, not part-of, not same-as - so an inference the whole paper turns on lives only in this prose. The audit caught this sense quoting two sentences and grounded on one - the second is now inside the span, which is the same fault I found on Jones2002 three hours ago and the same fix Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`senses[2]`	0.95	the tagger's words
senses	AND THE LIMIT IS STATED AGAINST THEIR OWN HEADLINE: `Quotation withheld` Having shown that repetition durably reduces the frequency effect, they say in the next breath that it does not dissolve it. Compare meyer1971's `we do not have ways to test all the possible explanations` and gotts2012's `similar studies ... have been lacking` - three papers in this corpus writing the limit flat, forty-five years apart Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`senses[3]`	0.85	the tagger's words
claim_relations	extends → theories of the word-frequency effect Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. Update, 15 September 2026: CLEARED evidence status='quote-not-in-current-staged-text' - the quote now locates in the current staged text, so the condition the marker recorded no longer holds.	`claim_relations[0]`	0.85	the tagger's words
claim_relations	contradicts → Forbach, Stanners and Hochaus (1974) and Kirsner and Smith (1974), whose lexical-decision repetition results diverge from those reported here Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`claim_relations[1]`	0.85	the tagger's words
claim_relations	contradicts → Landauer and Streeter (1973) on orthographic neighbourhood differences between common and rare words Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`claim_relations[2]`	0.85	the tagger's words
claim_relations	builds-on → Forbach, Stanners and Hochaus's (1974) repetition experiment in the lexical decision task Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`claim_relations[3]`	0.85	the tagger's words
concept_edges	word frequency —distinct-from→ repetition Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. strength of the relation: 0.9 · note: A LIMIT CLAIM, AND IT RUNS AGAINST THE PAPER'S OWN HEADLINE. They have just shown repetition producing 'long-lasting…'; this sentence says the effect that survives means 'a complete explanation…'. So the two are not the same thing and one does not reduce to the other. Weight 0.9 rather than 0.95 because 'suggests' is theirs and is inside the quote. The edge exists only because the authors declined to over-claim - had they stopped one sentence earlier, the corpus would hold the reduction and not the limit. Audit 2026-09-28: DOUBTFUL - read against its full span and kept, but the span says a full explanation of word frequency will not be found in recency and repetition; distinct-from is loose. also in: word frequency · repetition	`concept_edges[1]`	0.95	the tagger's words
content_tags	5 — reaction-time experiments reported Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.quantities[0]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	600 — typical average lexical-decision response time Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.quantities[1]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	18 — Experiment 1 sample (9 male, 9 female) Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.quantities[2]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	0-31 — range of repetition lag between presentations Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.quantities[3]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	206 / 306 — total stimuli and trials in Experiment 1 Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.quantities[4]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	high-frequency words are recognized faster than low-frequency in lexical decision Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.findings[0]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	word frequency had little effect in pronunciation Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted.	`content_tags.findings[1]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	prior presentation produces long-lasting reductions in the frequency effect Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted.	`content_tags.findings[2]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	frequency effects involve both encoding and retrieval Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.	`content_tags.findings[3]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	word frequency Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: word frequency	`content_tags.variables[0]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	response latency Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: response latency	`content_tags.variables[2]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	recency Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: recency	`content_tags.variables[4]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	repetition Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: repetition	`content_tags.variables[5]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	lexical decision task Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: lexical decision task	`content_tags.definitions[0]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	word-frequency effect Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: word-frequency effect	`content_tags.definitions[1]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	subjective lexicon Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. also in: subjective lexicon	`content_tags.definitions[2]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	ANOVA Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: ANOVA	`content_tags.statistics[0]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	degrees-of-freedom Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: degrees-of-freedom	`content_tags.statistics[1]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	hypothesis-testing Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: hypothesis-testing	`content_tags.statistics[2]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	mean Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: mean	`content_tags.statistics[3]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	p-value Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: THE QUOTE CONTINUES A SENTENCE THAT THIS COPY CUTS IN TWO - a figure, its axis labels and its caption stand between it and the words it follows, which read 'was signifi-'. also in: p-value	`content_tags.statistics[4]`		the tagger's words
content_tags	statistical-significance Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: statistical-significance	`content_tags.statistics[5]`	0.85	the tagger's words
content_tags	variance Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above. about this quote: QUOTE RECOVERED FROM THE PAPER'S OWN CHARACTERS. The recorded quote was LETTERS-ONLY IDENTICAL to this stretch of the staged text but not an exact substring of it - spaces, hyphens, ligature glyphs or mathematical operators differed, so it could never anchor. This is the file's own text between the same two letters: not produced by a rule about the damage, copied out of the file. Round-trip checked (the recovered span is letters-only equal to the original) and length-checked. The text as originally recorded is kept in evidence as extracted. also in: variance	`content_tags.statistics[6]`	0.85	the tagger's words

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