Activation, Competition, and Frequency in Lexical Access

Abstract

chapter: in current research into lexical access . . . a certain consensus has begun to emerge about the basic properties of the form-based access and selection process / this consensus shares at least the following three basic assumptions / the activation metaphor is the appropriate one for representing the goodness of fit between sensory inputs and representations of lexical forms / perceptual processing is based on a process of competition between simultaneously active candidates / the selection (or identification) decision is based on relations between levels of activation / perceptual choice is made as the candidate emerges from among the welter of competing activation levels /// the research I am going to describe in this paper is intended to evaluate the correctness of this kind of view of lexical access and selection /// focus on the central claim that discrimination involves a process of competition, so that the outcome of the perceptual process is fundamentally contingent in nature /// investigate this question here by attempting to manipulate the activation level of a word's competitors / the variable we use to achieve these effects is the relative frequency of occurrence of words and their candidates (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2000 APA, all rights reserved):