The Greek-Cypriot Word Pool: Normative Data for Concreteness and Imageability for 2,950 Words

Abstract

Repeated cognitive assessments are frequently necessary to evaluate how interventions affect the behavior of participants in cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and psycholinguistic experiments. Repeated cognitive assessments can lead to familiarity with test materials, which could affect test performance. To prevent potentially misleading outcomes, stemming from increased familiarity rather than the intervention itself, it’s important to employ alternate forms of tests using words as stimuli. During the development of these alternate forms, each stimulus is carefully substituted with another stimulus that has identical psycholinguistic properties. The absence of normative data for words’ psycholinguistic properties poses significant obstacles in research. In this study, we introduce the Greek- Cypriot Word Pool (G-CWP), a dataset providing normative values for imageability and concreteness for approximately 2,950 Greek words. Both variables are well-known for their influence on the speed and precision with which words can be recalled, recognized, named, and classified. We gathered imageability data from 366 Greek-Cypriots and concreteness data from 312 Greek-Cypriots. For the majority of the words, no significant gender differences were found. However, we did observe a significant, albeit negligible, effect of education on both variables. Our data demonstrate good interval reliability, consistency, and validity, verifying the reliability and validity of the obtained norms. Therefore, the G-CWP offers valuable metrics for researchers working with Greek-Cypriot participants, enabling them to effectively control and manipulate words that are used as stimuli in experiments.