Experiment I demonstrated that the percentage of letters used in constructing abbreviations of common words decreased with word length (4-5, 6-7, 8-9 letters) and Thorndike-l.orge (T-L) frequency (1-24, 25-49, A, AA). The contraction principle (omitting interior letters) was preferred with short words and truncation (omitting terminal letters) with long words. Number of different abbreivations increased with word length, but not T-L frequency.Experiment II asked 5s to construct abbreviations by systematic use of contraction, truncation, or both. The results were virtually the same as before and showed that 5s can use the abbreviation rules in a consistent fashion. Experiment III required 5s to reconstitute the original words from the abbreviations produced in Experiment I. Although approximately 67% were reconstructed correctly, word reconstruction varied greatly with T-L frequency, word length, and sex of 5. The experiments were related to intraword constraint and coding processes.

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