ON THE ROLES OF FREQUENCY AND LEXICAL ACCESS IN WORD NAMING

The loci of frequency effects in the naming task were investigated in four experiments. Frequency is commonly assumed to influence lexical access; however, it could also influence processes involved in generating articulatory output. On immediate naming trials, subjects read words aloud as soon as they were presented. On delayed naming trials, subjects initiated pronunciation after a response signal several hundred milliseconds following stimulus presentation. Delays were based on experimentally determined baseline naming latencies for individual subjects; response signals occurred 200, 400, or 600 ms over base-line. The stimuli were high and low frequency homophones (e.g., MAIN MANE), high and low frequency rhymes (e.g., COLD FOLD), and word/pseudohomophone pairs such as SCAM SKAM. These stimuli differ in frequency but are equated in terms of other factors relevant to articulation. The results suggest that the magnitude of frequency effects in naming depends on the amount of time before the response signal occurs. Large effects that were obtained in immediate naming were eliminated at the longest delay intervals. The results are interpreted in terms of current models of word recognition and naming, with specific regard to the role of lexical access and the computational basis of frequency effects. © 1990.