WORD-FREQUENCY AFFECTS NAMING LATENCY IN DUTCH WHEN AGE OF ACQUISITION IS CONTROLLED

Morrison and Ellis (1995) claim that most evidence of frequency effect s in word recognition is not genuine but an artefact of the age at whi ch the words have been acquired. The finding that age of acquisition ( AOA) has a reliable independent effect on word naming is replicated fo r the Dutch language. However, it is also shown that the effect of wor d frequency remains reliable with AOA controlled. A possible interpret ation is that the English studies have been based on retrospective stu dent ratings, whereas in the present study a more on-line measure of A OA was used.