A bias in favor of the positive response to high-frequency words in recognition memory.
A relatively liberal response bias for high-frequency words and a violation of the mirror effect for hit and false-alarm rates were found in a yes-no recognition-memory test. Subjects more frequently responded "old" to high-frequency words than to low-frequency words. Four experiments were conducted to determine the causes of the different response biases and of the violation of the mirror effect. The word-frequency effect on hit rates did not appear, whereas the false-alarm rate for low-frequency words was lower than that for high-frequency words. When low- or high-frequency words were presented separately in distinct halves of a recognition-memory test, the relatively liberal response bias for high-frequency words was diminished. A model for recognition judgment is proposed that assumes the use of a common criterion for low- and high-frequency words.
Hoshino
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Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan.
D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D006801:Humans; D011939:Mental Recall; D010700:Phonetics; D012153:Retention, Psychology; D012660:Semantics; D013067:Speech Perception; D014706:Verbal Learning