The Role of Lexical Properties in Detecting Repetition Errors

Presenter: Korrina Bentley

Faculty Sponsor: Adrian Staub

School: UMass Amherst

Research Area: Psychology and Behavioral Sciences

Session: Poster Session 6, 4:15 PM - 5:00 PM, Concourse, B12

ABSTRACT

During reading, individuals sometimes fail to detect word repetitions. Previous research (Staub, Dodge, & Cohen, 2019) has found that repetitions of the short function word the are overlooked far more often (≈50%) than repetitions of content words (≈10%).

We tested whether the frequent failure to notice function word repetitions can be explained by lexical properties. One study manipulated the frequency of repeated content words (high vs. low) while holding word class, length, and predictability constant. A second study manipulated word length (short vs. long) while controlling frequency, predictability, and word class. Across both studies, grammatical sentences were accepted at high rates (91–96%), whereas repetition sentences were rejected only 8–11% of the time. Critically, neither word frequency nor word length substantially affected the likelihood of overlooking a repetition.

A final experiment replicated Staub et al. (2019) using sentences that were either grammatical or contained repetitions of short content words (three letters) or short function words (2–3 letters; e.g., the, in). Participants overlooked repeated content words about 10% of the time but overlooked repeated function words on roughly 53% of trials, closely reproducing the original effect. Together, these findings suggest that the high rate of failure to notice function word repetitions cannot be explained by frequency or length alone, but may reflect the combined influence of multiple lexical properties. Understanding how these lexical properties influence error detection can refine models of reading and inform interventions for reading comprehension and fluency.

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