LEXICAL FAMILIARITY AND PROCESSING EFFICIENCY - INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES IN NAMING, LEXICAL DECISION, AND SEMANTIC CATEGORIZATION

College students were separated into 2 groups (high and low) on the ba sis of 3 measures: subjective familiarity ratings of words, self-repor ted language experiences, and a test of vocabulary knowledge. Three ex periments were conducted to determine if the groups also differed in v isual word naming, lexical decision, and semantic categorization. High Ss were consistently faster than low Ss in naming visually presented words. They were also faster and more accurate in making difficult lex ical decisions and in rejecting homophone foils in semantic categoriza tion. Taken together, the results demonstrate that Ss who differ in le xical familiarity also differ in processing efficiency. The relationsh ip between processing efficiency and working memory accounts of indivi dual differences in language processing is also discussed.