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Marc Brysbaert

Publications and source records attributed to Marc Brysbaert.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2026

AI-generated familiarity estimates are a useful new source of information about word knowledge in Simplified Chinese.

This study evaluated the usefulness of AI-generated estimates of word familiarity for predicting word difficulty in Simplified Chinese, building on previous research in alphabetic languages. We found that familiarity estimates produced using large language models (LLMs) showed moderate-to-strong correlations with human familiarity ratings. These LLM estimates were the most effective predictors of both word naming and lexical decision times, surpassing traditional metrics such as word frequency and human familiarity ratings, while the latter still provided modest, non-overlapping variance. GPT-4o with English instructions produced superior results compared to the Chinese-centered models currently available. The results imply that LLM familiarity estimates are a valuable resource for Chinese psycholinguistics, supporting work across experimental design, modeling, and norming. We release familiarity estimates for 27,624 words for unrestricted research and educational use.

Humans↗
PubMed2006

Masked phonological priming effects in English: are they real? Do they matter?

For over 15 years, masked phonological priming effects have been offered as evidence that phonology plays a leading role in visual word recognition. The existence of these effects-along with their theoretical implications-has, however, been disputed. The authors present three sources of evidence relevant to an assessment of the existence and implications of these effects. First, they present an exhaustive meta-analytic literature review, in which they evaluate the strength of the evidence for masked phonological priming effects on English visual word processing. Second, they present two original experiments that demonstrate a small but significant masked priming effect on English visual lexical decision, which persists in conditions that may discourage phonological recoding. Finally, they assess the theory of visual word recognition offered by the DRC model (Coltheart, Rastle, Perry, Langdon, & Ziegler, 2001) in the context of their empirical data. Through numerous simulations with this model, they argue that masked phonological priming effects might best be captured by a weak phonological (i.e., dual-access) theory in which lexical decisions are made on the basis of phonological information.

Humans↗
PubMed2006

Reexamining the word length effect in visual word recognition: new evidence from the English Lexicon Project.

In the present study, we reexamined the effect of word length (number of letters in a word) on lexical decision. Using the English Lexicon Project, which is based on a large data set of over 40,481 words (Balota et al., 2002), we performed simultaneous multiple regression analyses on a selection of 33,006 English words (ranging from 3 to 13 letters in length). Our analyses revealed an unexpected pattern of results taking the form of a U-shaped curve. The effect of number of letters was facilitatory for words of 3-5 letters, null for words of 5-8 letters, and inhibitory for words of 8-13 letters. We also showed that printed frequency, number of syllables, and number of orthographic neighbors all made independent contributions. The length effects were replicated in a new analysis of a subset of 3,833 monomorphemic nouns (ranging from 3 to 10 letters), and also in another analysis based on 12,987 bisyllabic items (ranging from 3 to 9 letters). These effects were independent of printed frequency, number of syllables, and number of orthographic neighbors. Furthermore, we also observed robust linear inhibitory effects of number of syllables. Implications for models of visual word recognition are discussed.

Attention↗
PubMed2005

Age of acquisition effects in picture naming: evidence for a lexical-semantic competition hypothesis.

In many tasks the effects of frequency and age of acquisition (AoA) on reaction latencies are similar in size. However, in picture naming the AoA-effect is often significantly larger than expected on the basis of the frequency-effect. Previous explanations of this frequency-independent AoA-effect have attributed it to the organisation of the semantic system or to the way phonological word forms are stored in the mental lexicon. Using a semantic blocking paradigm, we show that semantic context effects on naming latencies are more pronounced for late-acquired than for early-acquired words. This interaction between AoA and naming context is likely to arise during lexical-semantic encoding, which we put forward as the locus for the frequency-independent AoA-effect.

Age Factors↗
PubMed2005

Parafoveal-on-foveal effects on eye movements in text reading: does an extra space make a difference?

Schiepers proposed that in text reading, the currently fixated word and the next word are processed in parallel but with a time delay of 90 ms per degree of eccentricity. In his model, the benefit of seeing the upcoming word is due to the fact that the parafoveal information from fixation n is combined with the foveal information from fixation n+1 to boost word recognition, at least when the fixation on word n is of an optimal duration (between 210 and 270 ms). We tested this assumption by adding an extra blank space between the foveal and the parafoveal word. According to the model, this should result in a 30 ms longer processing time for the foveal word. However, reading time was shorter for a word followed by a double space than for a word followed by a single space. An effect of parafoveal word length was also observed with a longer word in the parafoveal leading to shorter fixation times on the foveal word. Implications of these low-level parafoveal-on-foveal effects are discussed.

Eye Movements↗
PubMed2005

Naming two-digit arabic numerals: evidence from masked priming studies.

The authors investigated how 2-digit Arabic numerals are named by looking at the effects of masked primes on the naming latencies. Target numerals were named faster when prime and target shared a digit at the same position (e.g., the target 28 primed by 18 and 21). In contrast, naming latencies were slower when prime and target shared 1 or 2 digits at non-corresponding places (e.g., the target 28 primed by 82, 86, or 72). Subsequent experiments showed that these priming effects were situated at the level of the verbal production of the Arabic numerals. The data point to a non-semantically mediated route from visual input to verbal output in the naming of 2-digit Arabic numerals.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Testing the multiple in the multiple read-out model of visual word recognition.

This study provided a test of the multiple criteria concept used for lexical decision, as implemented in J. Grainger and A. M. Jacobs's (1996) multiple read-out model. This account predicts more inhibition (or less facilitation) from a masked neighbor when accuracy is stressed more but more facilitation (or less inhibition) when the speed of responding is emphasized more. The authors tested these predictions by stressing accuracy (Experiment 1) and response speed (Experiment 2). The results of Experiment 1 showed a stronger neighbor-inhibition effect in the stress-on-accuracy condition than in the control condition. The results of Experiment 2 showed facilitation because of the neighbor prime in the stress-on-speed condition relative to the control condition. These results corroborate the multiple criteria account.

Humans↗
PubMed2004

Age of acquisition and the cumulative-frequency hypothesis: a review of the literature and a new multi-task investigation.

Early-acquired words are processed faster than late-acquired words. This is a well-accepted effect within the word recognition literature. Different explanations have been proposed, either localizing the effect of age of acquisition (AoA) in a particular substage of word processing or seeing it as the result of the way in which information is stored and accessed in the brain in general. The cumulative-frequency hypothesis is an example of the latter type of explanation: it states that the total number of times a system has come across a particular stimulus will determine the speed with which the stimulus can be recognized. The present multi-task investigation provides a critical test of the different explanations. Results show that in a variety of word processing tasks the effects of frequency and AoA are highly correlated, and that the impact of AoA is consistently higher than would be expected on the basis of the cumulative-frequency hypothesis. The findings are interpreted as evidence for recent demonstrations of a loss of plasticity in neural networks due to training and/or for mathematical models that describe the growth of the lexico-semantic network as the attachment of new nodes to existing nodes.

Age Factors↗
PubMed2004

The importance of interhemispheric transfer for foveal vision: a factor that has been overlooked in theories of visual word recognition and object perception.

In this special issue of Brain and Language, we examine what implications the division between the left and the right brain half has for the recognition of words presented in the center of the visual field. The different articles are a first indication that taking into account the split between the left and the right cerebral hemisphere need not be an inescapable nuisance in models of visual word recognition but may in fact form the clue to the solution of a longstanding problem within this literature. Also, the fact that interhemispheric transfer has implications for foveal word recognition should interest laterality researchers, as it makes their findings more central to normal reading. In this introductory article, I first present a rough picture of the current (lack of) evidence for a bilateral representation of the fovea and the absence of a callosal delay. I then briefly discuss the suggestions made by the different authors on how to integrate the foveal split within current models of visual word recognition.

Brain↗
PubMed2004

The size of the cross-lingual masked phonological priming effect does not depend on second language proficiency.

Using a masked phonological priming paradigm, Brysbaert, Van Dyck, and Van de Poel (1999) showed that Dutch-French bilinguals perform better at identifying tachistoscopically presented L2 words (e.g., oui [yes]) when those words are primed by L1 words or nonwords that are homophonic to the L2 target word according to the L1 grapheme-phoneme conversion rules (e.g., wie [who]). They noted that this priming effect was smaller for balanced bilinguals than for less proficient bilinguals, although the interaction failed to reach significance. Findings of Gollan, Forster, and Frost (1997) suggest that this could be attributed to a greater reliance on phonology in L2 reading, caused by a smaller proficiency in this language. However, in this study we show that the Dutch-French cross-lingual phonological priming effect is equally large for perfectly balanced and less proficient bilinguals. Our findings are in line with more recent work of Van Wijnendaele and Brysbaert (2002).

Child↗
PubMed2004

Cross-notation number priming investigated at different stimulus onset asynchronies in parity and naming tasks.

In this paper, a parity judgment task and a number naming task were used to investigate cross-notational number priming. Primes and targets could be verbal (e.g., seven) or Arabic numbers (e.g., 7), and were always presented in a different notation within the same trial (either a verbal prime and an Arabic target or an Arabic prime and a verbal target). Previous experiments showed that response latencies increase when the distance between prime and target increases (for example, in a naming task, seven is pronounced faster after 6 than after 5). This semantic distance priming effect was the same for Arabic and verbal targets and was the same for within-notation trials as for cross-notation trials. In the present experiments, we wanted to investigate whether the cross-notational priming effect also occurs at SOAs shorter than the ones used in previous experiments. Therefore, we used SOAs of 43, 57, 86, and 115 ms. Semantic distance effects were indeed present at these shorter SOAs: Processing times in the semantic parity judgment task and in the non-semantic naming task increased when the distance between prime and target increased. The results are discussed and integrated within an interactive dual-route model of number processing that postulates that the impact of the semantic and the non-semantic route depends on the task and the notation of the stimuli.

Humans↗
PubMed2004

Forward and backward number translation requires conceptual mediation in both balanced and unbalanced bilinguals.

It is much debated whether translation is semantically mediated or based on word-word associations at the lexical level. In 2 experiments with Dutch (L1)-French (L2) bilinguals, the authors showed that there is a semantic number magnitude effect in both forward and backward translation of number words: It takes longer to translate number words representing large quantities (e.g., acht, huit [eight]) than small quantities (e.g., twee, deux [two]). In a 3rd experiment, the authors replicated these effects with number words that had been acquired only just before the translation task. Finally, it was shown that the findings were not due to the restricted semantic context of the stimuli. These findings strongly suggest that translation processes can be semantically mediated in both directions, even at low levels of L2 proficiency.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

The effect of age of acquisition in visual word processing: further evidence for the semantic hypothesis.

The authors investigated whether the meaning of visually presented words is activated faster for early-acquired words than for late-acquired words. They addressed the issue using the semantic Simon paradigm. In this paradigm, participants are instructed to decide whether a stimulus word is printed in uppercase or lowercase letters. However, they have to respond with a verbal label ("living" or "nonliving") that is either congruent with the meaning of the word (e.g., saying "living" to the stimulus DOG) or incongruent (e.g., saying "nonliving" to the stimulus dog). Results showed a significant congruency effect that was stronger for early-acquired words than for late-acquired words. The authors conclude that the age of acquisition is an important variable in the activation of the meaning of visually presented words.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

WordGen: a tool for word selection and nonword generation in Dutch, English, German, and French.

WordGen is an easy-to-use program that uses the CELEX and Lexique lexical databases for word selection and nonword generation in Dutch, English, German, and French. Items can be generated in these four languages, specifying any combination of seven linguistic constraints: number of letters, neighborhood size, frequency, summated position-nonspecific bigram frequency, minimum position-nonspecific bigram f requency, position-specific frequency of the initial and final bigram, and orthographic relatedness. The program also has a module to calculate the respective values of these variables for items that have already been constructed, either with the program or taken from earlier studies. Stimulus queries can be entered through WordGen's graphical user interface or by means of batch files. WordGen is especially useful for (1) Dutch and German item generation, because no such stimulus-selection tool exists for these languages, (2) the generation of nonwords for all four languages, because our program has some important advantages over previous nonword generation approaches, and (3) psycholinguistic experiments on bilingualism, because the possibility of using the same tool for different languages increases the cross-linguistic comparability of the generated item lists. WordGen is free and available at http://expsy.ugent.be/wordgen.htm.

Choice Behavior↗
PubMed2004

Lexique 2: a new French lexical database.

In this article, we present a new lexical database for French: Lexique. In addition to classical word information such as gender, number, and grammatical category, Lexique includes a series of interesting new characteristics. First, word frequencies are based on two cues: a contemporary corpus of texts and the number of Web pages containing the word. Second, the database is split into a graphemic table with all the relevant frequencies, a table structured around lemmas (particularly interesting for the study of the inflectional family), and a table about surface frequency cues. Third, Lexique is distributed under a GNU-like license, allowing people to contribute to it. Finally, a metasearch engine, Open Lexique, has been developed so that new databases can be added very easily to the existing ones. Lexique can either be downloaded or interrogated freely from http://www.lexique.org.

Databases as Topic↗
PubMed2003

The number 747 is named faster after seeing Boeing than after seeing Levi's: Associative priming in the processing of multidigit Arabic numerals.

Two experiments are reported in which naming multidigit Arabic numerals was shown to depend on the context in which the numbers were presented. Number naming and number decisions were faster after an associative prime (e.g., 747 preceded by the word Boeing) than after an unrelated prime, both in unmasked and masked priming conditions. On the basis of these findings, we conclude that number naming is not always based on a quantity-based semantically mediated pathway.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Interhemispheric stroop-like interference in number comparison: evidence for strong interhemispheric integration of semantic number information.

Three experiments investigated interhemispheric interactions in number comparison using the interhemispheric Stroop-like paradigm (E. Ratinckx, M. Brysbaert, & B. Reynvoet, 2001). In all experiments, a target was presented in I visual field simultaneously with a distractor in the other visual field. In Experiment 1, both target and distractor were of the same modality (Arabic digits), whereas in Experiment 2, target and distractor were of different modalities (Arabic digits and word numerals). In Experiment 3, the interhemispheric Stroop-like task of Experiment 1 was combined with intrahemispheric conditions to evaluate the strength of the interhemispheric interactions. Overall, the results point to strong interhemispheric integration during semantic access and response preparation with very weak lateralization of the semantic number system.

Adolescent↗