MORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE AND ITS EFFECT ON VISUAL WORD RECOGNITION

The recognition of prefixed and nonprefixed words was examined in a lexical decision (word vs nonword) task. Predictions derived from the morphological decomposition model (Taft and Forster, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1975, 14, 638-647) were not confirmed. Morphological complexity of a word affects recognition time when subjects are responding to predominately prefixed stimuli but not when responding to mostly single-morpheme stimuli. The discrepancies between our data and earlier studies are discussed, and it is suggested that morphological decomposition may be a special strategy induced by the overrepresentation of multimorphemic stimuli. In general, it appears that words need not be decomposed into their morphological constituents prior to recognition. © 1979 Academic Press, Inc.