This study investigated the effects of Neighborhood Density (ND) and Neighborhood Frequency (NF) on visual word recognition in 32 Brazilian Portuguese speakers. Participants were given a standard perceptual identification task in which they had a 3-second time-limit for saying aloud what the target word was. Experimental stimuli consisted of 64 words according to an ND (2) x NF (2) factorial design. Higher percentages of errors were made for words with a higher frequency neighbor and lower percentages of errors were made for words with a high neighborhood density. It is argued that the results were due to ND and NF effects on lexical access and that they pose difficulties for Dual Route and PDP models of visual word recognition.
Orthographic neighborhood; perceptual identification task; visual word recognition; reading
