Age of acquisition, word frequency, and the role of phonology in the lexical decision task

In five experiments, we examined the respective roles of word age of acquis ition (AoA) and frequency in the lexical decision task. The two variables w ere manipulated orthogonally (while controlling for concreteness and length ) in fully factorial designs, Experiment 1 was a conventional lexical decis ion task, and Experiments 2-5 involved various attempts to interfere with r eliance upon phonology. In Experiment 2, only orthographically illegal nonw ords were used; in Experiment 3, pseudohomophone nonwords; in Experiment 4, articulatory suppression by the recitation of a nursery rhyme; and in Expe riment 5, articulatory suppression by the repetition of a single word The s ame basic pattern of results was observed in all experiments: There were ma in effects of both AoA and frequency, which interacted in such a way that t he AoA effect was larger for low- than for high-frequency words. Although t he AoA effect was reduced by manipulations intended to interfere with phono logical processing, the manipulations did not eliminate the effect. The res ults are discussed in terms of current models of reading in which it is pro posed that AoA has its primary effect on the retrieval of lexical phonology , which appears to be consulted automatically in the lexical decision task.