Is the go/no-go lexical decision task an alternative to the yes/no lexical decision task?

In the go/no-go lexical decision task (LDT), participants are instructed to respond as quickly as they can when a word is presented and not to respond if a nonword is presented. By minimizing part of the response selection process in the experimental task, the impact of response decision time on the obtained lexical decision time is probably reduced relative to the standard yes/no LDT (Gordon, 1983). Experiments 1 and 2 show that the go/no-go LDT is sensitive to the effects of word frequency and associative priming—the magnitude of these effects is similar with the two tasks. More important, the go/no-go LDT has a number of advantages with respect to the “standard” yes/no LDT: It offers faster response times, more accurate responding, and fewer processing demands than does the yes/no task. Accordingly, the go/no-go task appears to be an excellent alternative to the standard yes/no task.

[1]  G. Stone,et al.  Strategic control of processing in word recognition. , 1993, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[2]  Philip L. Smith,et al.  Stochastic Dynamic Models of Response Time and Accuracy: A Foundational Primer. , 2000, Journal of mathematical psychology.

[3]  S. Lupker,et al.  Effects of word frequency and spelling-to-sound regularity in naming with and without preceding lexical decision. , 2000, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[4]  K I Forster,et al.  The prime lexicality effect: form-priming as a function of prime awareness, lexical status, and discrimination difficulty. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[5]  Rolf Ulrich,et al.  Donders's assumption of pure insertion: an evaluation on the basis of response dynamics , 1999 .

[6]  K. Heyer,et al.  Are lexical decisions a good measure of lexical access? Repetition blocking suggests the affirmative. , 1988 .

[7]  D. Balota,et al.  Where are the effects of frequency in visual word recognition tasks? Right where we said they were! Comment on Monsell, Doyle, and Haggard (1989). , 1990, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[8]  David M. Lane,et al.  PsychLib: A library of machine language routines for controlling psychology experiments on the Apple Macintosh computer , 1987 .

[9]  A. Pollatsek,et al.  The effects of neighborhood frequency in reading and lexical decision. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[10]  C. Chiarello,et al.  Lexical decision and naming asymmetries: Influence of response selection and response bias , 1988, Brain and Language.

[11]  Roger Ratcliff,et al.  A diffusion model account of the lexical decision task. , 2004, Psychological review.

[12]  D. Balota,et al.  Word frequency, repetition, and lexicality effects in word recognition tasks: beyond measures of central tendency. , 1999, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[13]  G R Grice,et al.  What makes targets redundant? , 1992, Perception & psychophysics.

[14]  E. Zaidel,et al.  Effect of response programming on hemispheric differences in lexical decision , 1990, Neuropsychologia.

[15]  R. Ratcliff Group reaction time distributions and an analysis of distribution statistics. , 1979, Psychological bulletin.

[16]  D. Balota,et al.  Are lexical decisions a good measure of lexical access? The role of word frequency in the neglected decision stage. , 1984, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[17]  M. S. Mayzner,et al.  Human information processing : tutorials in performance and cognition , 1975 .

[18]  J Grainger,et al.  Orthographic processing in visual word recognition: a multiple read-out model. , 1996, Psychological review.

[19]  K. Rayner,et al.  Comparing naming, lexical decision, and eye fixation times: Word frequency effects and individual differences , 1998, Memory & cognition.

[20]  Robert G Pachella,et al.  The Interpretation of Reaction Time in Information-Processing Research 1 , 1973, Human Information Processing.

[21]  F. Donders On the speed of mental processes. , 1969, Acta psychologica.

[22]  Douglas L. Chute,et al.  Accurate millisecond timing on Apple’s Macintosh using Drexel’s MilliTimer , 1986 .

[23]  Allan Collins,et al.  A spreading-activation theory of semantic processing , 1975 .

[24]  F. Donders,et al.  Over de snelheid van psychische Processen , 1868 .

[25]  J. H. Neely Semantic priming effects in visual word recognition: A selective review of current findings and theories. , 1991 .

[26]  A. Pollatsek,et al.  Evidence for the use of assembled phonology in accessing the meaning of printed words. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[27]  Saul Sternberg,et al.  The discovery of processing stages: Extensions of Donders' method , 1969 .

[28]  Roger W. Schvaneveldt,et al.  Frequency and pronounceability in visually presented naming and lexical decision tasks. , 1987 .

[29]  A Pollatsek,et al.  On the use of counterbalanced designs in cognitive research: a suggestion for a better and more powerful analysis. , 1995, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[30]  David A. Balota,et al.  Mental Chronometry: Beyond Reaction Time , 1991 .

[31]  B. Gordon Subjective frequency and the lexical decision latency function: Implications for mechanisms of lexical access. , 1985 .

[32]  R W Schvaneveldt,et al.  An activation--verification model for letter and word recognition: the word-superiority effect. , 1982, Psychological review.

[33]  G C Van Orden,et al.  Pathway selection's utility for control of word recognition. , 1998, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[34]  Alfonso Caramazza,et al.  Lexical decision for open- and closed-class words: Failure to replicate differential frequency sensitivity , 1982, Brain and Language.

[35]  Michael C. Doyle,et al.  Effects of frequency on visual word recognition tasks: where are they? , 1989, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[36]  Michael Garman,et al.  Psycholinguistics: Accessing the mental lexicon , 1990 .

[37]  Yasushi Hino,et al.  Effects of word frequency and spelling-to-sound regularity in naming with and without preceding lexical decision. , 2000 .

[38]  Roger Ratcliff,et al.  A Theory of Memory Retrieval. , 1978 .

[39]  Barry Gordon,et al.  Lexical access and lexical decision: Mechanisms of frequency sensitivity. , 1983 .

[40]  James L. McClelland,et al.  An interactive activation model of context effects in letter perception: I. An account of basic findings. , 1981 .

[41]  C. Davis,et al.  Masked Homophone and Pseudohomophone Priming in Children and Adults , 1998 .

[42]  David A. Balota,et al.  Word frequency, repetition, and lexicality effects in word recognition tasks: beyond measures of central tendency. , 1999 .

[43]  A Pollatsek,et al.  The effects of "neighborhood size" in reading and lexical decision. , 1999, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance.

[44]  Christopher T. Kello,et al.  Strategic control in word reading: evidence from speeded responding in the tempo-naming task. , 2000, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[45]  Jeanette Altarriba,et al.  Depth of spreading activation revisited: Semantic mediated priming occurs in lexical decisions , 1988 .

[46]  A. Jacobs,et al.  On the role of competing word units in visual word recognition: The neighborhood frequency effect , 1989, Perception & psychophysics.

[47]  A. D. Groot,et al.  Primed Lexical Decision: Combined Effects of the Proportion of Related Prime-Target Pairs and the Stimulus-Onset Asynchrony of Prime and Target , 1984 .

[48]  James L. McClelland On the time relations of mental processes: An examination of systems of processes in cascade. , 1979 .

[49]  S. Sternberg The discovery of processing stages , 1969 .

[50]  Yasushi Hino,et al.  Effects of Polysemy in Lexical Decision and Naming: An Alternative to Lexical Access Accounts , 1996 .

[51]  F. Cuetos,et al.  Diccionario de frecuencias de las unidades lingüísticas del castellano , 1995 .

[52]  Stephen J. Lupker,et al.  The Effects of Word Frequency for Japanese Kana and Kanji Words in Naming and Lexical Decision: Can the Dual-Route Model Save the Lexical-Selection Account? , 1998 .

[53]  Kenneth I. Forster,et al.  No enemies in the neighborhood: absence of inhibitory neighborhood effects in lexical decision and semantic categorization. , 1996, Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition.

[54]  G. Humphreys,et al.  Basic processes in reading : visual word recognition , 1993 .