Age of Acquisition

Age of Acquisition is a psycholinguistic variable referring to the age at which a word is typically learnt. For example, the word 'penguin' is typically learnt at a younger age than the word 'albatros'. Studies in psycholinguistics suggest that age of acquisition has an effect on the speed of reading words.[1] It is a particularly strong variable in predicting the speed of picture naming.[2]

Norms

Sets of normative values for age of acquisition for large sets of words have been developed.

Kuperman, Stadthagen-Gonzalez, and Brysbaert [3]

Gilhooly and Logie.[4]

Morrison et al.[5]

Relation to other variables

It has been disputed whether age of acquisition has an effect on word tasks on its own or by virtue of its covariance with other variables such as word frequency.[6] Alternatively, it has been suggested that the age of acquisition is related to the fact that an earlier learnt word has been encountered more often.[7] These issues were partially resolved in an article by Ghyselinck, Lewis and Brysbaert.[8]

References

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