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. 2006 Jul;32(4):805-15.
doi: 10.1037/0278-7393.32.4.805.

The low-frequency encoding disadvantage: Word frequency affects processing demands

Rachel A Diana  1 , Lynne M Reder
Affiliations

The low-frequency encoding disadvantage: Word frequency affects processing demands

Rachel A Diana et al. J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cogn. 2006 Jul.

Abstract

Low-frequency words produce more hits and fewer false alarms than high-frequency words in a recognition task. The low-frequency hit rate advantage has sometimes been attributed to processes that operate during the recognition test (e.g., L. M. Reder et al., 2000). When tasks other than recognition, such as recall, cued recall, or associative recognition, are used, the effects seem to contradict a low-frequency advantage in memory. Four experiments are presented to support the claim that in addition to the advantage of low-frequency words at retrieval, there is a low-frequency disadvantage during encoding. That is, low-frequency words require more processing resources to be encoded episodically than high-frequency words. Under encoding conditions in which processing resources are limited, low-frequency words show a larger decrement in recognition than high-frequency words. Also, studying items (pictures and words of varying frequencies) along with low-frequency words reduces performance for those stimuli.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Remember and familiar hits for the picture recognition test as a function of superimposed word frequency at study in Experiment 1. Error bars indicate the standard error.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Hits and false alarms for the word recognition test as a function of word frequency in Experiment 1. Error bars indicate the standard error.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Remember and familiar hits and false alarms as a function of word frequency and task condition for Experiment 2. Panel A shows hits, and Panel B shows false alarms. Error bars indicate the standard error.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Hits and false alarms for Experiment 3 as a function of word frequency and task condition. Error bars indicate the standard error.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Raw number of correct, incorrect, and “don't remember” responses on the source judgment task by word frequency and encoding condition. Error bars indicate the standard error.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Proportion of remember and familiar hits. Panel A shows remember hits, and Panel B shows familiar hits. Error bars indicate the standard error.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Proportion of remember and familiar false alarms by word frequency and task encoding condition. Error bars indicate the standard error.
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