Figure 1
Experiments 1–2: Density plots illustrating average bigram frequency (ABF), minimal bigram frequency (minBF), and maximal bigram frequency (maxBF) for fictitious words, foils, and real words in the Italian lexicon.
Figure 2
Experiments 1–2: An illustration of how average bigram frequency (ABF), minimal bigram frequency (minBF), and maximal bigram frequency (maxBF) were calculated. For each of the novel strings (e.g., etesse), we identified all bigrams present in this string and matched them with the frequencies with which these bigrams occur in the Italian lexicon (SUBTLEX-IT; Crepaldi et al., 2015; Italian bigram frequencies were calculated as position-independent occurrence probabilities). ABF was defined as the average value of the frequencies of all the bigrams present in that string, minBF was equivalent to the frequency of the bigram with the lowest frequency from all the bigrams present in this string (e.g., f[ss] = 0.0055), and maxBF was equivalent to the frequency of the bigram with the highest frequency (e.g., f[e ] = 0.0212).
Table 1
Experiments 1–2: A correlation matrix (Spearman’s ρ; all ps < .01) illustrating the similarity in letter and bigram probabilities as calculated based on fictitious word strings, foils, and the Italian lexicon.
| EXPERIMENT 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ITALIAN | WORDS | FOILS | ||
| letter probabilities | Italian | – | 0.97 | 0.91 |
| words | 0.97 | – | 0.92 | |
| foils | 0.91 | 0.92 | – | |
| bigram probabilities | Italian | – | 0.78 | 0.43 |
| words | 0.78 | – | 0.37 | |
| foils | 0.43 | 0.37 | – | |
| EXPERIMENT 2 | ||||
| ITALIAN | WORDS | FOILS | ||
| letter probabilities | Italian | – | 0.96 | 0.86 |
| words | 0.96 | – | 0.86 | |
| foils | 0.86 | 0.86 | – | |
| bigram probabilities | Italian | – | 0.84 | 0.35 |
| words | 0.84 | – | 0.28 | |
| foils | 0.35 | 0.28 | – | |
Figure 3
Experiments 1–2: Mean percentages of “word” responses for each item, shown by Type (foil vs. word strings) and Seen (previously unseen vs. seen). The fitted lines represent the effect of minimal bigram frequency (minBF).
Table 2
Experiments 1–2: Results from the fixed effects structure of the GLMM’s including ABF, minBF, Type (foil vs. word) and Seen (unseen vs. seen).
| EXPERIMENT 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SE | z | p | ||
| Intercept | .06 | .09 | .67 | .504 |
| ABF | .06 | .07 | .92 | .356 |
| Type | –.04 | .08 | –.50 | .620 |
| Seen | –.32 | .07 | –4.85 | <.001 |
| minBF | .22 | .06 | 3.62 | <.001 |
| ABF * Type | .00 | .08 | .02 | .981 |
| ABF * Seen | .07 | .06 | 1.10 | .273 |
| Type * Seen | .87 | .11 | 7.98 | <.001 |
| minBF * Type | –.16 | .07 | –2.35 | .018 |
| minBF * Seen | –.11 | .05 | –2.00 | .045 |
| ABF * Type * Seen | –.11 | .08 | –1.47 | .142 |
| minBF * Type * Seen | .09 | .06 | 1.49 | .137 |
| EXPERIMENT 2 | ||||
| SE | z | p | ||
| Intercept | .06 | .09 | .71 | .473 |
| ABF | .08 | .07 | 1.07 | .285 |
| Type | –.10 | .09 | –1.15 | .252 |
| Seen | –.26 | .08 | –3.05 | .002 |
| minBF | .14 | .04 | 3.46 | <.001 |
| ABF * Type | .02 | .10 | .25 | .800 |
| ABF * Seen | –.01 | .07 | –.15 | .877 |
| Type * Seen | .71 | .13 | 5.55 | <.001 |
| minBF * Type | –.04 | .05 | –.93 | .355 |
| minBF * Seen | –.05 | .04 | –1.15 | .250 |
| ABF * Type * Seen | .12 | .09 | 1.31 | .190 |
| minBF * Type * Seen | –.02 | .05 | –.52 | .603 |
Table 3
Experiments 1–2: Results from the fixed effects structure of the GLMM’s including ABF, minBF, Type (foil vs. word), Seen (unseen vs. seen), and controlling for Block.
| EXPERIMENT 1 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| SE | z | p | ||
| Intercept | .06 | .12 | .47 | .636 |
| Block | –.01 | .11 | –.12 | .906 |
| ABF | .07 | .10 | .76 | .448 |
| Type | –.24 | .13 | –1.86 | .062 |
| Seen | –.33 | .13 | –2.44 | .015 |
| minBF | .18 | .09 | 1.96 | .0498 |
| ABF * Block | –.02 | .10 | –.20 | .838 |
| Type * Block | .22 | .13 | 1.73 | .083 |
| ABF * Type | .07 | .15 | .51 | .607 |
| Seen * Block | .00 | .13 | .00 | .997 |
| ABF * Seen | .07 | .13 | .52 | .603 |
| Type * Seen | 1.05 | .18 | 5.63 | <.001 |
| minBF * Block | .03 | .10 | .28 | .778 |
| minBF * Type | –.15 | .11 | –1.34 | .181 |
| minBF * Seen | .02 | .12 | .14 | .891 |
| ABF * Type * Block | –.06 | .14 | –.41 | .680 |
| ABF * Seen * Block | .00 | .12 | .02 | .986 |
| Type * Seen * Block | –.19 | .17 | –1.07 | .285 |
| ABF * Type * Seen | –.15 | .18 | –.79 | .428 |
| minBF * Type * Block | .00 | .11 | –.04 | .967 |
| minBF * Seen * Block | –.12 | .12 | –1.02 | .306 |
| minBF * Type * Seen | –.01 | .14 | –.09 | .925 |
| ABF * Type * Seen * Block | .03 | .18 | .19 | .850 |
| minBF * Type * Seen * Block | .10 | .13 | .77 | .443 |
| EXPERIMENT 2 | ||||
| SE | z | p | ||
| Intercept | –.09 | .14 | –.68 | .494 |
| Block | .17 | .13 | –1.26 | .207 |
| ABF | –.04 | .14 | –.34 | .736 |
| Type | –.06 | .17 | –.38 | .704 |
| Seen | –.20 | .17 | –1.17 | .242 |
| minBF | .26 | .07 | 3.49 | <.001 |
| ABF * Block | .14 | .13 | 1.03 | .303 |
| Type * Block | –.05 | .17 | –.31 | .754 |
| ABF * Type | .19 | .17 | 1.09 | .274 |
| Seen * Block | –.08 | .15 | –.55 | .583 |
| ABF * Seen | .11 | .16 | .68 | .497 |
| Type * Seen | .75 | .22 | 3.35 | <.001 |
| minBF * Block | –.13 | .08 | –1.71 | .087 |
| minBF * Type | –.14 | .09 | –1.62 | .105 |
| minBF * Seen | –.19 | .10 | –1.92 | .055 |
| ABF * Type * Block | –.16 | .17 | –.97 | .332 |
| ABF * Seen * Block | –.13 | .16 | –.85 | .398 |
| Type * Seen * Block | –.02 | .20 | –.10 | .922 |
| ABF * Type * Seen | –.01 | .22 | –.06 | .949 |
| minBF * Type * Block | .12 | .09 | 1.25 | .211 |
| minBF * Seen * Block | .15 | .09 | 1.63 | .103 |
| minBF * Type * Seen | .11 | .11 | .99 | .323 |
| ABF * Type * Seen * Block | .15 | .21 | .72 | .468 |
| minBF * Type * Seen * Block | –.16 | .11 | –1.43 | .152 |