Psycholinguistic variables involved in concept recall from the successive presentation of features

VIVAS, L.; MACINTYRE, M.; RICCI, L.; VIVAS, J.

Estudios de Psicología

Psychology Press

Año: 2015 p. 529 - 619

0210-9395

The aim of this study was to analyse the psycholinguistic variablesof the attributes and concepts involved in the recall of a concept. One hundred and twenty adults (18-40 years old) participated. A lexical recall task was administered by presenting a successive list of defining attributes. Forty concepts from different semantic categories were used. The attributes were obtained empirically from local Semantic Features Production Norms. The influence of the characteristics and attributes of the concepts on the number of participants who accessed the name of the concept and the correct guess trend was analysed. Significant values for Age of Acquisition, Presence of Distinctive Attributes and Presence of Taxonomic Attributes were observed. Results show that concepts which are acquired earliest are more easily recalled; presenting taxonomic categories narrows the search and the presence of distinctive attributes allow differentiating between such concepts within a category.