APPENDIX A.
Log word frequency (WF) and neighborhood density (ND; number of neighbors) for four categories of target words, (1) High WF, high ND, (2) High WF, ND, (3) Low WF, high ND, (4) Low WF, low ND.
| (1) High WF, high ND | (2) High WF, low ND | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Word | WF | ND | Word | WF | ND |
| Big | 6.54 | 20 | Black | 5.00 | 1 |
| Bike | 4.62 | 19 | Blue | 4.84 | 12 |
| Call | 4.41 | 25 | Cold | 4.45 | 11 |
| Cut | 4.14 | 25 | Count | 3.91 | 7 |
| Fight | 4.20 | 24 | Fish | 4.91 | 13 |
| Hard | 5.20 | 18 | High | 4.29 | 9 |
| Hot | 5.15 | 28 | House | 4.76 | 5 |
| Leaf | 4.25 | 19 | Lunch | 3.99 | 7 |
| Name | 3.71 | 16 | Move | 4.50 | 8 |
| Pick | 4.92 | 34 | Play | 6.66 | 3 |
| Sit | 4.65 | 36 | Soft | 4.34 | 5 |
| Work | 4.56 | 20 | Watch | 5.69 | 5 |
| Mean | 4.70 | 23.70 | Mean | 4.82 | 7.17 |
| (3) Low WF, high ND | (4) Low WF, low ND | ||||
| Word | WF | ND | Word | WF | ND |
| Bath | 0 | 17 | Beard | 0 | 6 |
| Boil | 0 | 15 | Blame | 0 | 7 |
| Cash | 0 | 26 | Cough | 0 | 11 |
| Comb | 0 | 24 | Cure | 0 | 1 |
| Fur | 1.39 | 20 | Fetch | 0 | 8 |
| Heel | 0.69 | 29 | Hire | 0 | 5 |
| Hum | 1.39 | 25 | Huge | 1.79 | 2 |
| Lock | 0.69 | 32 | Lamp | 1.39 | 11 |
| Nest | 0 | 15 | Nurse | 0 | 10 |
| Poke | 0.69 | 27 | Plant | 1.10 | 8 |
| Sore | 1.61 | 32 | Search | 0 | 11 |
| Wit | 0 | 31 | Wound | 0 | 10 |
| Mean | 0.54 | 24.40 | Mean | 0.36 | 7.50 |
When defining neighbors for the words, words with an addition, a deletion or a substitution of one sound were included in the neighborhood. When using the neighborhood calculator, a familiarity criterion of 6 was applied to exclude words with low familiarity ratings from the neighborhoods. Since word frequency and neighborhood density are correlated (e.g., many high frequency words are also high in neighborhood density), the words were chosen so that the effects of word frequency and neighborhood density can be separated. This was done by making word choices that maintained the following significant and non-significant differences:
(1) Word frequency for the high WF, high ND words (mean WF = 4.70) and the high WF, low ND (mean WF = 4.82) did not significantly differ, t(df=23) = .40, p > .05.
(2) Word frequency for the low WF, high ND words (mean WF = .54) and low WF, low ND words (mean WF = .36) did not significantly differ, t(df=23) = .80, p > .05.
(3) Neighborhood density for the high WF, high ND words (mean ND = 23.7) and low WF, high ND words (mean ND = 24.4) did not significantly differ, t(df=23) = .3, p > .05.
(4) Neighborhood density for the high WF, low ND words (mean ND = 7.2) and the low WF, low ND words (mean ND = 7.5) did not significantly differ, t(df=23) = .23, p > .05.