The crossword puzzle paradigm: The effectiveness of different word fragments as cues for the retrieval of words

Abstract

We investigated the internal structure of words in the mental lexicon by using a crossword puzzle paradigm. In two experiments, subjects were presented with word fragments along with a semantic cue, and were asked to retrieve the whole word that contained the presented fragment and was compatible with the semantic information. In Experiment 1, we found that any cluster of three adjacent letters facilitated retrieval better than dispersed letters. Moreover, syllabic clusters had a greater facilitative effect than nonsyllabic pronounceable clusters or nonpronounceable clusters. In Experiment 2, we found that syllable units facilitated retrieval better than morphemic units. The results are interpreted as evidence for the existence oflexical subunits that are larger than the letter but smaller than the word, and that are organized according to phonologic principles. We propose an interactive model for how crossword puzzles are solved.In this study we are concerned with the following questions: Does the mental lexicon contain units smaller than the whole word but larger than the individual letter, and, if so, what kind of units are they? Previous answers to these questions have been modality specific. There is wide agreement that syllabic units play an important role in auditory word perception (e.g., Kahn, 1976; Mehler, Dommergues, Frauenfelder, & Segui, 1981;Segui, 1984). In research on visual word perception, on the other hand, there is conflicting evidence as to what the subword units might be, and whether or not the visually presented stimuli undergo phonologic as well as visual processing. Spoehr and Smith (1975) showed that a vocalic center group (YCG) is more easily perceived than a similar cluster of letters not containing a vowel. Their use of the YCG is based on the work of Hansen and Rodgers (1965), who defined a YCG as a cluster consisting of a vowel with a consonant or consonants on either side, where the whole cluster forms a pronounceable unit. AN, CAN, ANT, and CANT are examples ofYCGs. Spoehr and Smith (1973; see also Spoehr, 1978) also showed that one-syllable words are processed faster and more accurately than two-The authors wish to thank

Five down, Absquatulated: Crossword puzzle clues to how the mind works

“…A weakness in their study was that the syllabic clues were invariably the stressed syllables of the target words, so the phonological-morphological distinction was confounded with pronunciation stress. Goldblum and Frost (1988) considered their results to be consistent with the assumption that word recognition is mediated, at least sometimes, by syllable recognition. Letter recognizers are connected directly to word recognizers, but also to syllable recognizers that are, in turn, connected to word recognizers and can therefore facilitate the word recognition process.…”

“…In an experimental comparison of the effectiveness of the four kinds of clues distinguished here, Goldblum and Frost (1988) found syllabic fragments to be superior to all the other types of letter combinations, and any cluster of adjacent letters to be better than the same number of nonadjacent letters. In a second experiment, these investigators found syllabic clues to be superior to comparable morphemic-unit clues (e.g., _ _NOT_ _ _ _ _ vs. _ _ _ _TON_ _ _ as clues for MONOTONOUS).…”

“…More generally, it seems reasonable to assume that the relative informativeness of clues to real puzzle doers is roughly approximated by their relative informativeness to an ideal observer whose knowledge of the lexicon is complete. Goldblum and Frost (1988) interpreted one aspect of their results to be an indication that the amount of information provided by a cluster of (adjacent) letters is greater than the sum of that provided by each of the cluster's constituents alone. This is a particularly interesting conclusion, because it can be true in an informationtheoretic sense only if the occurrence of the constituent letters is negatively correlated.…”

“…The crossword puzzle as a vehicle for studying cognition Goldblum and Frost (1988) argued that the use of a crossword puzzle paradigm has some advantages over traditional lexical decision tasks, in which people must decide whether letter strings comprise words, as a method of exploring certain aspects of lexical content and access.…”

“…He found that the incorrect responses to these fragments were associated more closely with the correct solution words than with control words, and concluded from this finding that there was enough semantic information in the fragments to activate relevant semantic information, even when there was not enough to give access to the correct solution word, and that, more generally, even the solving of insight-type verbal problems may proceed in a graded fashion. Goldblum and Frost (1988) investigated the effectiveness of several types of three-letter clues in an experiment addressed to the question of whether there are units in the lexicon larger than the individual letter but smaller than the complete word. If there are no such units, they argued, "any three letters of a word should be just as good a retrieval clue as any other three letters situated in similar positions within the word" (p. 160).…”