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Bigram versatility and bigram frequency
... La razón es que esta tarea permite mayor flexibilidad a la hora de manipular las posiciones de varias letras a la vez, de modo que podemos obtener evidencia convergente sobre cómo la información posicional se codifica dentro del léxico ortográfico . La tarea de solución de anagramas se ha utilizado para evidenciar una gran variedad de fenómenos relacionados tanto con el reconocimiento de palabras como con los mecanismos de solución de problemas (Mayzner & Tresselt, 1962; Schwartz, 1968; Topper, Macey & Solso, 1973; Tresselt & Mayzner, 1968; Velandrino, 1985 ). Esta técnica consiste en la presentación de una secuencia de letras que reordenadas de una determinada manera forman una palabra. La tarea del participante es descubrir la palabra que se encuentra escondida en el anagrama. ...
Resumen: El objetivo de este trabajo consiste en estudiar si la posición de las letras se codifica de una forma absoluta o relativa, y en particular, cono-cer el papel que la sílaba juega en la codificación de la información posicio-nal dentro de las representaciones ortográficas. Para ello, empleamos dos experimentos con una tarea de solución de anagramas. En dicha tarea, se presenta un anagrama (CSIAGTO) y el participante tiene que descubrir la palabra que se forma ordenando las letras internas del anagrama (CASTI-GO). Los resultados del Experimento 1 muestran un efecto de la presencia de bigramas adyacentes: los anagramas que mantienen un bigrama en una posición adyacente (CTGASIO) son resueltos con más frecuencia que aquellos con todas las letras internas desordenadas (CSIAGTO), lo que su-giere que para reconstruir una secuencia altamente distorsionada, es impor-tante conocer la posición relativa de una letra con respecto a otra. En el Experimento 2, manipulamos la naturaleza silábica o subsilábica del bigra-ma para estudiar si el efecto de bigrama puede reducirse a un efecto silábico o puede estar modulado por el estatus subléxico (silábico o subsilábico) del bigrama. Los resultados obtenidos muestran un efecto silábico. Finalmente, examinamos las implicaciones de estos resultados para los modelos actuales de reconocimiento visual de palabras. Palabras Clave: Información posicional; unidades subléxicas; tarea de so-lución de anagramas. Title: The role of the syllable in positional information coding in ortho-graphic representations. Abstract: The main aims of this study are: i) to examine whether the posi-tional information is coded in absolute or relative terms in orthographic representations, and ii) to explore the role of syllabic units in this process. To that end, we will use a new technique: the Anagram Solution Task (AST). In an AST, an anagram is presented (e.g., CSIAGTO) and the par-ticipant has to mentally rearrange the inner letters of the word (CASTIGO –punishment, penalty). In Experiment 1, the results showed a bigram ef-fect: the anagrams that maintained a bigram in an adjacent position (CTGASIO) were solved with higher accuracy than those anagrams that had all inner letters disordered (CSIAGTO). That is, relative position is more effective than absolute position to reconstruct a highly disordered anagram. In Experiment 2, we examined whether or not this bigram effect had a syllable nature by manipulating syllabic bigram structure. Results showed a syllabic effect. Taken together, the data have implications for the current models of visual-word recognition.
... For example, the pair AG occurs more often than the pair AH even though H is a more common letter than G. Letter frequencies were based on Solso and King's (1976) norms. Frequencies of letter pairs were taken from Topper, Macey, and Solso's (1973) norms. All letters except W and Y were used in at least one pair. ...
People's ability to remember the frequency of occurrence of pairs of items was investigated in a series of five experiments. In the first experiment, people were asked to make frequency discriminations between two pairs of letters. Most subjects performed at higher than chance levels. In the next four experiments, subjects were required to make situational frequency discriminations where the stimuli were word pairs occurring either once or twice. Overall performance was above chance even when subjects were not anticipating any test on the stimuli. However, performance was enhanced when subjects effortfully associated the two members of each pair. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Subjects with high or low scores on Rotter's Social Reaction Inventory were required to solve word and nonsense anagrams. A significant interaction was found between the locus of control and the two types of anagrams, thus confirming the hypothesis that locus of control measures an individual's percep tion of the cohesiveness of the environment. In addition, word anagrams were found to be more difficult tn solve than nonsense anagrams.
A comprehensive count of bigram and trigram frequencies and versatilities was tabulated for words recorded by Kučera and Francis.
Totals of 577 different bigrams and 6,140 different trigrams were found. Their frequencies of occurrence and the number of
different words in which they appeared are reported in this article.
The positional frequency and versatility of letters were tabulated for six-, seven-, and eight-letter English words.
Tabulations of letter and letter-combination versatility and frequency were made based on the Kucera and Francis (1967) word
frequency count. Letter versatility, a new descriptive statistic, was defined as the number of different words in which a
letter appears. These tabulations may be useful in the investigation of visual information processing, reading skills, and
human memory.
n-gram (n = 1 to 5) statistics and other properties of the English language were derived for applications in natural language understanding and text processing. They were computed from a well-known corpus composed of 1 million word samples. Similar properties were also derived from the most frequent 1000 words of three other corpuses. The positional distributions of n-grams obtained in the present study are discussed. Statistical studies on word length and trends of n-gram frequencies versus vocabulary are presented. In addition to a survey of n-gram statistics found in the literature, a collection of n-gram statistics obtained by other researchers is reviewed and compared.
An evaluation of the indices proposed in the literature regarding measures of anagram difficulty was made by asking three groups (ages 17-26, 39-51, 59-76) of adults (n = 54) to solve a list of 30 anagrams. Results indicated that only two of these indices (Thorndike-Lorge and Bigram Rank measures) significantly predicted frequency of solution in samples beyong college age. It was also found that the cognitive variable mediating the effects of these indices in middle aged and elderly subjects was crystallized ability, suggesting an experiential basis for the effects of both task and organismic variables as determinants of anagram problem solving in adulthood. The role of fluid ability as a mediator of problem solution in the young received limited support.
A catalog of 119 studies, mostly post-1960 except for a few important and well-controlled earlier ones, is listed. The studies
provide norms, scales, ratings, or lists of verbal material for use in experiments investigating aspects of cognitive psychology,
memory, psycholinguistics, neuropsychology, etc. The catalog is preceded by an outline index.
The journals of the Psychonomic Society have served as outlets for numerous stimulus norms and ratings. Such norms are useful to researchers in a variety of areas for manipulating and controlling stimulus attributes. This article presents an index of 142 norms published in the Society's journals, categorized according to the types of materials and ratings that are included in each.
Established bigram versatility (BV) as measured by the number of different words in which a bigram appeared. Anagram solution as a function of BV and bigram frequency was tested using 24 undergraduates as Ss. An inverse relationship between BV and anagram solution time was found. Results are discussed within the context of a reduced search area for anagram solving. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The authors report a series of original studies and analyze previous work in the area. "… the position is taken that the frequency with which verbal units have been experienced is the fundamental variable responsible for the characteristics which have been used to define meaningfulness." The implications of the frequency hypothesis were tested in 16 experiments. These experiments deal with the effects of the frequency of letters and letter-combinations on serial and paired-associate learning, the effect of "pronunciability" on learning, the effect of frequency on letter-sequence habits, and the difference in the effect of the meaningfulness of a word depending on whether the word is a stimulus or a response. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
An alphabetical list of 10,000 words which are found to occur most widely in a count of about 625,000 words from literature for children. 41 different sources were used. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The teacher’s word book of 30,000 words
- Thorndike E L Lorge
- E. L. Thorndike