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Letter frequency effect
People recognize more frequent letters faster

The letter frequency effect is an effect of letter frequency, according to which the frequency with which the letter is encountered influences the recognition time of a letter. Letters of high frequency show a significant advantage over letters of low frequency in letter naming, same-different matching, and visual search. Letters of high frequency are recognized faster than letters of low frequency. Appelman and Mayzner (1981) in their re-analysis of the studies concerning letter frequency effect have found that in 3 out of 6 studies using reaction times (RTs) as a dependent variable the letter frequency correlated significantly with RTs.

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Discussion

Majority of studies on letter frequency effect failed to find a significant letter frequency effect.6 These studies, however, used the same-different matching task7 in which the participants see two letters and are to respond if these letters are same or different.8 Therefore, the absence of letter frequency effect in these studies may be due to the participants using the visual form of a letter instead of a letter itself to match the letters.9

References

  1. Cosky, M. J. (1976). The role of letter recognition in word recognition. Memory & Cognition, 4 , 207-214. ↩

  2. Egeth, H., & Blecker, D. (1971). Differential effects of familiarity on judgments of sameness and difference. Perception & Psychophysics, 9 (4), 321-326. ↩

  3. Latimer, C. R. (1972). Search time as a function of context letter frequency. Perception, 1 , 57-71. ↩

  4. Miozo, Michele & Bastiani, Pierluigi de (2002). The Organization of Letter-Form Representations in Written Spelling: Evidence from Acquired Dysgraphia. Brain and Language 80, 366–392 ↩

  5. Appelman, I. B., & Mayzner , M. S. (1981). The letter-frequency effect and the generality of familiarity effects on perception.Perception & Psychophysics, 30, 436 – 446. ↩

  6. Boris, New & Grainger, Johnatan (2011). On letter frequency effects. Acta Psychologica 138, 322 –328 ↩

  7. Boris, New & Grainger, Johnatan (2011). On letter frequency effects. Acta Psychologica 138, 322 –328 ↩

  8. Boris, New & Grainger, Johnatan (2011). On letter frequency effects. Acta Psychologica 138, 322 –328 ↩

  9. Boris, New & Grainger, Johnatan (2011). On letter frequency effects. Acta Psychologica 138, 322 –328 ↩