Recognition memory for nouns as a function of abstractness and frequency

Abstract

An operational definition of abstractness in nouns was constructed by using the human discriminative response to identify two points on a scale of abstractness. This scale, consisting of 490 "abstract' and 571 "concrete' nouns, was found to have adequate reliability. When the scale was manipulated as an independent variable, the effect of abstractness on short-term recognition memory was highly significant, "abstract' nouns being less well remembered than "concrete' nouns. Frequency was found to be pertinent variable, independent of abstractness, very frequent nouns being less well remembered than some-what rarer nouns.

Full text

Journal
of
Experimental
Psychology
1961,
Vol.
61, No. 1,
23-29
RECOGNITION
MEMORY
FOR
NOUNS
AS A
FUNCTION
OF
ABSTRACTNESS
AND
FREQUENCY
*
ALOYSIA
M.
GORMAN
2
University
of
Denver
Abstract words have been
found
harder
to
remember
than
concrete
words whether learning
is
measured
by
recall (Stoke,
1929)
or by
recogni-
tion (Jampolsky, 1950).
Little
atten-
tion, however,
has
been given
(a) to
denning
the
universe
from
which
the
experimental words were obtained
and
securing representative sampling
therefrom,
(b) to
partialing
out the
differential
effect
of
total
previous
exposure
to the
word,
as
measured,
for
instance,
by
Thorndike-Lorge
frequency
counts,
or
(c)
to the
ques-
tion whether
the
meanings
of all
nouns
may be
considered
to lie on a
psychological
dimension
of
abstract-
ness. Studies
that
apply scaling
procedures
to
nouns
in
order
to
measure
meaning
or
meaningfulness
make little reference
to an
abstract-
concrete dimension (e.g., Noble,
1952),
although
Underwood
and
Richardson
(1956)
take
account
of it as a
possible
variable.
Osgood, Suci,
and
Tannen-
baum
(1957)
have
not
identified
an
abstractness-concreteness
dimension.
However, such
a
dimension must
refer
primarily
to a
denotative (cognitive)
1
This
paper
is
based
on a
dissertation
presented
to the
faculty
of the
Graduate
College,
University
of
Denver,
in
partial
fulfillment
of the
requirements
for the
degree
of
Doctor
of
Philosophy.
The
writer grate-
fully
acknowledges
the
supervision
and
guid-
ance
of
Joel
E.
Greene.
She
also wishes
to
express appreciation
for the
advice
and
assistance
of the
other
members
of her
com-
mittee
and for the aid of
Edith
L.
Schnell,
who
acted
as a
judge
in the
construction
of the
operational
definition.
2
Now at
Richmond Professional Institute
of
the
College
of
William
and
Mary, Rich-
mond,
Virginia.
aspect
of
meaning rather than
an
affective
(connotative)
aspect,
and
so may be
excluded
by
their
definition.
The
present study
was
undertaken
to
provide
an
operational definition
of
abstractness
in
nouns
as a
dimen-
sion
of
cognitive meaning
and to
demonstrate
the
psychological use-
fulness
of
this
definition
by
showing
its
relation
to
some accepted psycho-
logical
variable.
The
human dis-
criminative response
was
used
to
scale
two
points
on the
hypothesized dimen-
sion.
The
effect
on
short-term
recog-
nition
memory
of the
variable
so
scaled
was
experimentally demon-
strated,
under
the
hypothesis
that
the
relation
of the
scale
to
memory
is
such
that
nouns symbolizing concepts
of
higher degrees
of
abstractness
tend
to be
less well retained
than
those
symbolizing
concepts
of
lower degrees
of
abstractness.
The
operational
definition
has
been
directed exclusively toward
the ab-
stract-concrete dimension
as
distin-
guished
from
a
possibly
different
general-specific
dimension,
and
since
it was
desired
to
refer
to the
meaning
of
individual words independent
of
specific
utterances,
only pure nouns
have been scaled.
The
experimental
demonstration
differs
from
the
usual
recognition
learning experiment
in
its
specific
emphasis
on
cognitive
meaning.
CONSTRUCTION
OF A
TWO-POINT
ABSTRACTNESS
SCALE
Method
A
two-copy
list
of
1791
nouns
was
pre-
pared
by
including
every
single-word
entry