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"Word frequency"
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A Scaling Model for Estimating Time-Series Party Positions from Texts
Recent advances in computational content analysis have provided scholars promising new ways for estimating party positions. However, existing text-based methods face challenges in producing valid and reliable time-series data. This article proposes a scaling algorithm called WORDFISH to estimate policy positions based on word frequencies in texts. The technique allows researchers to locate parties in one or multiple elections. We demonstrate the algorithm by estimating the positions of German political parties from 1990 to 2005 using word frequencies in party manifestos. The extracted positions reflect changes in the party system more accurately than existing time-series estimates. In addition, the method allows researchers to examine which words are important for placing parties on the left and on the right. We find that words with strong political connotations are the best discriminators between parties. Finally, a series of robustness checks demonstrate that the estimated positions are insensitive to distributional assumptions and document selection.
Journal Article
Contextual Diversity, Not Word Frequency, Determines Word-Naming and Lexical Decision Times
Word frequency is an important predictor of word-naming and lexical decision times. It is, however, confounded with contextual diversity, the number of contexts in which a word has been seen. In a study using a normative, corpus-based measure of contextual diversity, word-frequency effects were eliminated when effects of contextual diversity were taken into account (but not vice versa) across three naming and three lexical decision data sets; the same pattern of results was obtained regardless of which of three corpora was used to derive the frequency and contextual-diversity values. The results are incompatible with existing models of visual word recognition, which attribute frequency effects directly to frequency, and are particularly problematic for accounts in which frequency effects reflect learning. We argue that the results reflect the importance of likely need in memory processes, and that the continuity between reading and memory suggests using principles from memory research to inform theories of reading.
Journal Article
Receptive vocabulary knowledge in L2 learners of Spanish: The role of high‐frequency words
The Challenge U.S. university students enroll in 2 years of language courses before advancing to linguistics, literature, and culture courses. However, do students have the basic vocabulary needed to transition to advanced courses? This article answers this question by examining 943 L2 Spanish students' knowledge of high‐frequency words at different proficiency levels. This study examined the receptive vocabulary knowledge and lexical developmental patterns of the 3000 most frequent words among 953 university L2 learners of Spanish at different stages in their language studies, taking into consideration the effect of high school instruction on high‐frequency vocabulary knowledge. Results confirm that even students who are enrolled in the most advanced courses in their program lack considerable knowledge of the 3000 most frequent words in their L2. Most vocabulary gains take place during the first semesters of instruction, and the learning of these words decreases substantially in intermediate and upper‐division courses. Furthermore, high school instruction plays an essential role in developing a solid high‐frequency vocabulary baseline but falls short in providing lexical learning beyond the first 1300 most frequent words. These results corroborate the need to implement a more lexically driven syllabus in the L2 Spanish language classroom to foster the learning of high‐frequency words.
Journal Article
\Time\ and \Thyme\ Are Not Homophones: The Effect of Lemma Frequency on Word Durations in Spontaneous Speech
Frequent words tend to shorten. But do homophone pairs, such as time and thyme, shorten equally if one member of the pair is frequent? This study reports an analysis of roughly 90,000 tokens of homophones in the Switchboard corpus of American English telephone conversations, in which it was found that high-frequency words like time are significantly shorter than their low-frequency homophones like thyme. The effect of lemma frequency persisted when local speaking rate, predictability from neighboring words, position relative to pauses, syntactic category, and orthographic regularity were brought under statistical control. These findings have theoretical implications for the locus of frequency information in linguistic competence and in models of language production, and for the role of articulatory routinization in shortening.
Journal Article
Dr. Seuss's 100 first words
Illustrations inspired by the art of Dr. Seuss present words for animals, foods, activities, toys, colors, vehicles, clothing, and other aspects of everyday life.
Book
The Road Not Taken: Creative Solutions Require Avoidance of High-Frequency Responses
To investigate individual differences in creativity as measured with a complex problem-solving task, we developed a computational model of the remote associates test (RAT). For 50 years, the RAT has been used to measure creativity. Each RAT question presents three cue words that are linked by a fourth word, which is the correct answer. We hypothesized that individuals perform poorly on the RAT when they are biased to consider high-frequency candidate answers. To assess this hypothesis, we tested individuals with 48 RAT questions and required speeded responding to encourage guessing. Results supported our hypothesis. We generated a norm-based model of the RAT using a high-dimensional semantic space, and this model accurately identified correct answers. A frequency-biased model that included different levels of bias for highfrequency candidate answers explained variance for both correct and incorrect responses. Providing new insight into the nature of creativity, the model explains why some RAT questions are more difficult than others, and why some people perform better than others on the RAT.
Journal Article