title: Ability to stand alone and processing of open-class and closed-class words: isolation versus context.
abstract: Four experiments investigating processing of closed-class and open-class words in isolation and in sentence contexts are reported. Taft (1990) reported that closed-class words which could not meaningfully stand alone and open-class words which could not meaningfully stand alone incurred longer lexical decision responses than did control words. Taft also reported that closed-class and open-class words which could stand alone meaningfully were not associated with longer lexical decision responses than were control words. Experiments 1 and 2 replicated Taft's effect of ability to stand alone on lexical decision responses to closed-class and open-class words presented in isolation. In Experiments 3 and 4, the same lexical decision targets were presented as part of semantically neutral context sentences in a moving window paradigm. The stand-alone effect was not present in Experiments 3 and 4. The results suggest Taft's conclusion that meaningfulness of a word influences lexical decision needs revision. An explanation is provided according to which support from message level and syntactic and lexical sources in sentence contexts influence words' perceived "meaningfulness."
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia 29208, USA.
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Schmauder
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D012660:Semantics; D014825:Vocabulary