Browne, B. (1989). Effects of vocabulary difficulty and text length on word definition and prose recall. The Journal of General Psychology, 116(4), 385-392.

Browne, B.

1989

Browne, B. (1989). Effects of vocabulary difficulty and text length on word definition and prose recall. The Journal of General Psychology, 116(4), 385-392.

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The effects of vocabulary & text length on the reader's ability to infer the meanings of words from their context & to recall factual content were examined. Adult Ss (N = 136) read easy- or difficult-vocabulary versions of connected prose on unfamiliar topics. Both easy & difficult passages were varied in length by the deletion of low-level propositions. Readers provided fewer correct English synonyms for two-syllable nonwords when passages contained difficult vocabulary; there was no main effect of text length & no interaction. Fact recall tended to be reduced when difficult vocabulary passages were shortened by removal of propositions, however. Results are discussed in terms of differences in task demands.

Word definitions and fact recall are affected differently by increases in vocabulary load and changes in text length. Consistent with Sternberg en Powell (1983), college-age subjects reading texts containing high percentages of rare words provided fewer correct synonyms for non-sense words than did subjects reading easier texts. In contrast, there were no main effects of either vocabulary or text length on free recall of facts.

136

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