Frequency and Repetition Effects in Lexical Memory

Frequency and Repetition Effects in Lexical Memory Don L. Scarborough Charles Cortese Hollis S. Scarborough

Tag layer of the DHSS Meta-Tagging Project. The article text is reproduced from the staged copy named in sourceDesc and is not altered; the tags are held separately in standOff so that overlapping and nested spans are preserved.

Frequency and Repetition Effects in Lexical Memory 1977 Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 10.1037/0096-1523.3.1.1 scarborough1977-lexical scarborough1977-lexical.txt, the project's staged copy 6de3bfd7ace121c58ea224cbe7f6dd2dedd1c924 personal-copy cognitive-psychology

the paper's own words

the tag layer; a sentence written by the tagger about the paper, always anchored to a quotation but not itself a quotation

0 spans located by searching the stored text for the quote's exact words, allowing any whitespace between them existence Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. repetition priming in lexical decision Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. behavioural-experiment behavioural-experiment Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mechanisms 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 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. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the paper cannot localize the repetition effect to a specific processing stage 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. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 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 because this record is not cleared for redistribution. The long-lag repetitions embedded in Experiment 2 involved too few stimuli and a design that could not exclude practice effects. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. Generalisation of the repetition account beyond the lexical decision task, for example to language production, still requires evidence. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. stimuli were counterbalanced across subjects for lag and for case 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 Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. the design was intended to separate repetition from practice, and the paper reports that it could not do so completely 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 Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. lexical decision lexical decision Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. word frequency word frequency Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. frequency effect frequency effect Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. repetition repetition Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 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 because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 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 because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 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 because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 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 because this record is not cleared for redistribution. extends → theories of the word-frequency effect 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. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. contradicts → Forbach, Stanners and Hochaus (1974) and Kirsner and Smith (1974), whose lexical-decision repetition results diverge from those reported here Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. contradicts → Landauer and Streeter (1973) on orthographic neighbourhood differences between common and rare words Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. builds-on → Forbach, Stanners and Hochaus's (1974) repetition experiment in the lexical decision task Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. word frequency —distinct-from→ repetition word frequency repetition 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. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 5 — reaction-time experiments reported Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 600 — typical average lexical-decision response time Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 18 — Experiment 1 sample (9 male, 9 female) Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 0-31 — range of repetition lag between presentations Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. 206 / 306 — total stimuli and trials in Experiment 1 Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. high-frequency words are recognized faster than low-frequency in lexical decision Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. word frequency had little effect in pronunciation 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. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. prior presentation produces long-lasting reductions in the frequency effect 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. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. frequency effects involve both encoding and retrieval Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. word frequency word frequency Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. response latency response latency Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. recency recency Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. repetition repetition Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. lexical decision task lexical decision task 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. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. word-frequency effect word-frequency effect Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. subjective lexicon subjective lexicon Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. ANOVA ANOVA 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. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. degrees-of-freedom degrees-of-freedom 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. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. hypothesis-testing hypothesis-testing 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. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. mean mean 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. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. p-value p-value 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-'. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. statistical-significance statistical-significance 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. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution. variance variance 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. Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.

The full text of this article is not redistributable, so it is not included here. The evidence sentences are withheld with it; the tag layer and its grounding status remain. The article itself is at https://doi.org/10.1037/0096-1523.3.1.1.