Relationship between word frequency and recognition: Perceptual process or response bias?
Robert B. Zajonc, B. Nieuwenhuyse · Journal of Experimental Psychology · 1964
Functions relating word frequency to recognition threshold and to pseudo-recognition threshold were compared for 24 Dutch Ss. Luminance thresholds were obtained to 10 Turkish words previously shown with frequencies of 1,2, 5, 10, and 25. Pseudo-recognition thresholds were obtained in the absence of stimuli for the same words and the same Ss. Drive was manipulated to determine whether it interacts with frequency, taking this interaction as an indication of response bias. The comparison of the frequency-threshold functions, the absence of a drive-frequency interaction, and the decreasing dependence of response emission on prior training with increasing stimulus information, demonstrated that response bias plays a negligible role in the frequencyrecognition relationship when stimuli are present and when a stringent recognition criterion is employed.