Short article: Size matters: Bigger is faster

Sereno, Sara C.; O’Donnell, Patrick; Sereno, Margaret E.

doi:10.1080/17470210802618900

Cited by 36 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…For example, imageability effects in monosyllabic word-naming performance were no longer significant once AoA was controlled for (Cortese & Khanna, 2007). Likewise, the semantic size variable introduced by Sereno, O'Donnell, and Sereno (2009) did not account for variance in lexical-decision performance when correlated variables were included in the analysis with 324 words (Kang, Yap, Tse, & Kurby, 2011).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Sensory experience ratings for over 5,000 mono- and disyllabic words

2012

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Sensory experience ratings (SERs) reflect the extent to which a word evokes a sensory and/or perceptual experience in the mind of the reader. Juhasz, Yap, Dicke, Taylor, and Gullick (Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 64: [1683][1684][1685][1686][1687][1688][1689][1690][1691] 2011) demonstrated that SERs predict a significant amount of variance in lexical-decision response times in two megastudies of lexical processing when a large number of established psycholinguistic variables are controlled for. Here we provide the SERs for the 2,857 monosyllabic words used in the Juhasz et al. study, as well as newly collected ratings on 3,000 disyllabic words. New analyses with the combined set of words confirmed that SERs predict a reliable amount of variance in the lexical-decision response times and naming times from the English Lexicon Project (Balota, Yap, Cortese, Hutchison, Kessler, Loftus, & Treiman, Behavior Research Methods 39:445-459, 2007) when a large number of surface, lexical, and semantic variables are statistically controlled for. The results suggest that the relative availability of sensory/perceptual information associated with a word contributes to lexical-semantic processing.Keywords Sensory experience rating . Embodied cognition . Visual word recognition . Semantic richness Recognizing a visual word is a complex process that includes access to its orthographic, phonological, and semantic representations. The purpose of the present study is to provide sensory experience ratings (SERs) on over 5,000 mono-and disyllabic words. SERs index the degree to which words evoke a sensory or perceptual experience when read silently. The rating is motivated by the grounded-cognition framework, which views conceptual processing as being rooted in the perceptual systems (e.g., Barsalou, Simmons, Barbey, & Wilson, 2003). For example, the word incense is rated relatively high on the 7-point SER scale (5.90). According to the theory, this word may not only create a mental image of incense in the mind of the reader, but also a slight but perceptible olfactory trace. This olfactory trace is believed to be available to the reader when asked to introspectively probe the experience, and it may impact word recognition processes, as evidenced by the impact of SERs on lexicaldecision performance (Juhasz et al., 2011).The activation of sensory/perceptual information during word processing is supported by neuroimaging data. For example, González et al. (2006), demonstrated that words related to the sense of smell produced more activity in olfactory areas of the brain than did control words. In addition, Pulvermüller, Shtyrov and Ilmoniemi (2005) showed that auditorily presented action verbs related to the face and leg activated corresponding brain regions consistent with the somatotopic map of the motor and premotor cortex. Importantly, this differential activation of brain regions occurred within 200 ms after the unique auditory stimulus was available. Pulvermüller et al. suggested that this time course im...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Sensory experience ratings for over 5,000 mono- and disyllabic words

2012

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“…In a lexical decision task, participants were asked to make a lexical decision on concrete nouns denoting either big or small objects. Results showed that the reaction time was faster when the words encoding a big object compared with a small object, suggesting that semantic size is automatically activated when reading a word [20]. Bottini and Casasanto [21] have also demonstrated that implicit spatial length modulates time estimates, although variations in the duration of the event nouns' referents had no effect on the judgments of the words' spatial length.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Modulation of Implicit Magnitude on Time Estimates

Yang

Zhang

2012

PLoS ONE

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Studies in time and quantity have shown that explicit magnitude (e.g. Arabic numerals, luminance, or size) modulates time estimates with smaller magnitude biasing the judgment of time towards underestimation and larger magnitude towards overestimation. However, few studies have examined the effect of implicit magnitude on time estimates. The current study used a duration estimation task to investigate the effects of implicit magnitude on time estimation in three experiments. During the duration estimation task, the target words named objects of various lengths (Experiment 1), weights (Experiment 2) and volumes (Experiment 3) were presented on the screen and participants were asked to reproduce the amount of time the words remained on the screen via button presses. Results indicated that the time estimates were modulated by the implicit magnitude of the word's referent with words named objects of smaller magnitude (shorter, lighter, or smaller) being judged to last a shorter time, and words named objects of greater magnitude (longer, heavier, or bigger) being judged to last a longer time. These findings were consistent with previous studies examining the effect of implicit spatial length on time estimates. More importantly, current results extended the implicit magnitude of length to the implicit magnitude of weight and volume and demonstrated a functional interaction between time and implicit magnitude in all three aspects of quantity, suggesting a common generalized magnitude system. These results provided new evidence to support a theory of magnitude (ATOM).

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“… Sereno, O’Donnell, and Sereno (2009) reported that words are recognised faster in a lexical decision task when their referents are physically large rather than small, suggesting that “semantic size” might be an important variable that should be considered in visual word recognition research and modelling. We sought to replicate their size effect, but failed to find a significant latency advantage in lexical decision for “big” words (cf.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Sereno, O’Donnell, and Sereno (2009) reported that words that refer to large objects (e.g., cathedral ) were recognised faster in a lexical decision task (LDT) than words that refer to small objects (e.g., cigarette ). Their results suggest that when a subject is deciding whether or not a letter string is a real word, there is obligatory access to the semantic size of the word (i.e., the size of the word’s referent), and that a larger semantic size facilitates processing of the word, resulting in quicker responding.…”

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confidence: 99%

Rapid communication: Semantic size does not matter: “Bigger” words are not recognized faster

Kang

Yap

Tse

et al. 2011

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Sereno, O’Donnell, and Sereno (2009) reported that words are recognised faster in a lexical decision task when their referents are physically large rather than small, suggesting that “semantic size” might be an important variable that should be considered in visual word recognition research and modelling. We sought to replicate their size effect, but failed to find a significant latency advantage in lexical decision for “big” words (cf. “small” words), even though we used the same word stimuli as Sereno et al. and had almost three times as many subjects. We also examined existing data from visual word recognition megastudies (e.g., English Lexicon Project), and found that semantic size is not a significant predictor of lexical decision performance after controlling for the standard lexical variables. In summary, the null results from our lab experiment—despite a much larger subject sample size than Sereno et al.—converged with our analysis of mega-study lexical decision performance, leading us to conclude that semantic size does not matter for word recognition. Discussion focuses on why semantic size (unlike some other semantic variables) is unlikely to play a role in lexical decision.

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Short article: Size matters: Bigger is faster

Cited by 36 publications

References 41 publications

Sensory experience ratings for over 5,000 mono- and disyllabic words

Sensory experience ratings for over 5,000 mono- and disyllabic words

The Modulation of Implicit Magnitude on Time Estimates

Rapid communication: Semantic size does not matter: “Bigger” words are not recognized faster

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