Age-of-acquisition and word frequency in the lexical decision task:: Further evidence from the French language

The influence of objective word frequency and age-of-acquisition (AoA) was investigated in three visual lexical decision experiments conducted in French. In Experiment 1, an AoA effect was found on RTs with word frequency controlled for, and in Experiment 2 a word frequency effect was observed on RTs with AoA controlled for. Experiment 3 used a large set of items and multiple regression analyses. The analyses revealed strong and reliable AoA and word frequency effects as well as an interaction between the two variables, with the result that an AoA effect was observed on low-frequency words only, replicating a previously reported interaction in lexical decision in English (Gerhand & Barry, 1999). The implications of the findings are discussed.