WORD-FREQUENCY EFFECTS IN NAMING FOR EXPERIENCED AND PREVIOUSLY EXPERIENCED ADULT READERS OF PERSIAN

In a word naming experiment, experienced readers of Persian named high frequency transparent Persian words significantly faster than matched low frequency words. There was no such frequency effect for adults wh o had, during the past decade or more, very little experience in readi ng materials in Persian due to immigration to the West. Overall, the p reviously experienced adults named words significantly slower than the ir experienced counterparts. The implications of this finding in relat ion to models of visual word recognition are discussed.