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High-frequency words are recalled better than are low-frequency words, but low-frequency words produce higher hit rates in a recognition test than do high·frequency words. Two experiments provided new data on the phenomenon and also evidence relevant to the dual process model of recognition, which postulates that recognition judgments are a function of increments in item familiarity and of item retrievability. First, recall and recognition by subjects who initially performed a single lexical decision task were compared with those of subjects who also gave definitions of high-, low-, and very low-frequency target words. In the second experiment, subjects initially performed either a semantic, elaborative task or an integrative task that focused attention on the physical, perceptual features of the same words. Both experiments showed that extensive elaborative processing results in higher recall and hit rates but lower false alarm rates, whereas word frequency has a monotonic, linear effect on recall and false alarm rates, but a paradoxical, curvilinear effect on hit rates. Elaboration is apparently more effective when the potential availability of meaningful connections with other structures is greater (as for high-frequency words). The results are consistent with the dual process model.A major challenge to any theory of recognition of prior occurrences is the word-frequency effect. What is challenging is the paradoxical finding that highfrequency words are recalled better than low-frequency words but in episodic recognition, hit rates for lowfrequency words are higher than those for high-frequency words. The earliest study to report the word-frequency effect in recognition appears to be that of Gorman (1961), which was later generalized by Schulman (1967). It should be noted, though, that the paradoxical reversal is not simply a function of some uniqueness of low-familiarity words or of the testing procedure. Glanzer and Bowles (1976), for example, have shown that false alarms demonstrate the dominance of highfrequency words; they are higher for high-than for lowfrequency words.The present paper is concerned with providing more evidence for the generality of the phenomenon across different kinds of processing conditions, and also with relating these to the dual process model of recognition (see Mandler, 1979Mandler, , 1980Mandler, , 1981.The dual process model states that the recognition of prior occurrence is the result of two additive and separate processes: familiarity and retrievability. We have assumed that the familiarity of an event is determined by the integration, perceptual distinctiveness, and internal structure of that event. Familiarity is affected by the frequency of exposure of the eventThe research reported here and the preparation of this report were supported by National Science Foundation Grant BNS 79-15336. George Goodman is now at BellLaboratories, Piscataway, New Jersey. Requests for reprints should be sent to George Mandler, Center for Human Information Processing, C-Q09, University of Ca...

This study examines the role of syntactic information in word recognition. Subjects made a word-nonword decision regarding a target string that was preceded by a syntactically appropriate word, a semantically related word, or an unrelated word. In Experiment 1, with syntactic and semantic trials assigned to separate blocks, syntactically and semantically appropriate context significantly reduced lexical decision for subsequent target words, compared with unrelated contexts. In Experiment 2, the syntactically and semantically primed trials were either blocked separately or mixed within the same block. Significant syntactic and semantic effects were both observed in the blocked condition, but only the semantic effect was obtained in the mixed condition.It is a well established fact that context facilitates word recognition (e.g., Tulving & Gold, 1963), and there is a considerable body of work suggesting that some of these effects are due to semantic priming (Fischler & Goodman, 1978;Meyer, Schvaneveldt, & Ruddy, 1975). However, there has been little work specifically designed to examine the effects of syntactic context. One relevant experiment was reported by Miller and Isard (1963), in which they showed that both semantic and syntactic information can improve the processing of sentences. In their first experiment, Miller and Isard's subjects listened to stimulus sentences and were told to repeat the sentences to the experimenter. The stimulus sentences were of three types: meaningful, grammatical sentences (e.g., "The academic lecture attracted a limited audience"), grammatically correct sentences that were semantically anomalous (e.g., "The odorless lecture became a filthy audience"), and ungrammatical sentences (e.g., "From hunters house motorists the carry"). Subjects were most accurate with the meaningful, grammatical sentences, but they were more accurate on the grammatical-anomalous sentences than on the ungrammatical sentences. Thus, appropriate syntactic context resulted in better performance even in the absence of meaningful semnatic information.Given Miller and Isard's (1969) findings, questions remain regarding the nature of the effect of semantic and syntactic information on linguistic processing. First, do semantic and syntactic information affect word recognition or some other aspect of processing required by the task? In the Miller and Isard experiment, conThis research was supported by NSF Grant BNS76-14830 to James L. McClelland. Thanks are due to Marguerite Moreno for her assistance in data collection and analysis and Jim Hollan for his helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper. Requests for reprints should be sent to James L. McClelland, Department of Psychology, C-009, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093. textual information could have had the effect of improving subjects' performance by providing a structure to facilitate memory retention and/or retrieval, with linguistic structure having no effect on the recognition of the words.Some results relevant t...

The System Concepts Laboratory (SCL) of Xerox PARC is in the second year of a research program investigating the support and enhancement of collaboration. To begin, we explain our research goals and operationally define "collaboration" as we have chosen to study it. Then, we describe the environment in which the research takes place, including the two-site, distributed organization of SCL. In our first year, we have had many experiences that are relevant to understanding collaboration and we present a few of them and discuss how they are affecting the course of our future research.

The System Concepts Laboratory (SCL) of Xerox PARC is in the second year of a research program investigating the support and enhancement of collaboration. To begin, we explain our research goals and operationally define “collaboration” as we have chosen to study it. Then, we describe the environment in which the research takes place, including the two‐site, distributed organization of SCL. In our first year, we have had many experiences that are relevant to understanding collaboration and we present a few of them and discuss how they are affecting the course of our future research. Also, we present a brief discussion of some hypotheses arising from our work so far, in hope of stimulating thought and work in the research of cooperative work.