Use of a word reading task for studying word recognition

A new experimental procedure is introduced for studying word recognition. On each trial in the word reading task, subjects are presented a target word, and their response latency, indicating when they have read the word, is recorded. Two experiments demonstrated the sensitivity of the procedure. In Experiment 1, subjects responded faster to frequent words than to infrequent words, and the frequency effect was greater for long words than for short words. In Experiment 2, responses were faster to a target word if it was preceded by a related, rather than an unrelated, word. Furthermore, reaction times were slower if the target was degraded rather than intact. The word reading task is a potentially less complicated experimental procedure than the lexical decision and naming tasks because it eliminates the binary decision and verbal production demands of those tasks.