title: Contextual diversity is a main determinant of word identification times in young readers.
abstract: Recent research with college-aged skilled readers by Adelman and colleagues revealed that contextual diversity (i.e., the number of contexts in which a word appears) is a more critical determinant of visual word recognition than mere repeated exposure (i.e., word frequency) (Psychological Science, 2006, Vol. 17, pp. 814-823). Given that contextual diversity has been claimed to be a relevant factor to word acquisition in developing readers, the effects of contextual diversity should also be a main determinant of word identification times in developing readers. A lexical decision experiment was conducted to examine the effects of contextual diversity and word frequency in young readers (children in fourth grade). Results revealed a sizable effect of contextual diversity, but not of word frequency, thereby generalizing Adelman and colleagues' data to a child population. These findings call for the implementation of dynamic developmental models of visual word recognition that go beyond a learning rule by mere exposure.
authors: ERI - Lectura and Departamento de Metodología, Facultad de Psicología, Universitat de València, 46010 Valencia, Spain. mperea@valencia.edu
authors: Manuel
authors: M
authors: Perea
authors: Ana Paula
authors: AP
authors: Soares
authors: Montserrat
authors: M
authors: Comesaña
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D003657:Decision Making / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology; D011932:Reading; D021641:Recognition, Psychology / Q000502:physiology*; D012660:Semantics; D014825:Vocabulary