The word frequency effect is a psychological phenomenon in which people recognize commonly used words faster and more accurately than words used rarely. Recognition times are consistently faster for words a person has seen more often than for words seen less often, so a high-frequency word such as the is processed more quickly than a low-frequency word such as strait, an effect that varies with an individual's own familiarity with a given language and has also been found to extend to character-level processing in languages such as Chinese.
Facts
Core ClaimRecognition times are faster for words seen more frequently than for words seen less frequently. 1 Classification
Type of Phenomenon Connections
In Branch
Source Word frequency effect, Wikipedia
Sources
1. Word frequency effect, Wikipedia
Lead paragraph
The word frequency effect is a psychological phenomenon where recognition times are faster for words seen more frequently than for words seen less frequently.
In Branch: Psycholinguistics, Lead sentence
The word frequency effect is a psychological phenomenon where recognition times are faster for words seen more frequently than for words seen less frequently.
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