Differential effects of context on age-of-acquisition in visual word recognition.

The role of Age of Acquisition (AoA) as a psycholinguistic variable on visual word recognition has been the topic of much recent research with evidence showing how early acquired items, such as words and pictures, are processed faster and more accurately in comparison to late acquired items. Several key questions have been raised with regards to understanding the age of acquisition phenomenon, specifically the locus of the AoA effects and its organisation within the lexical system. In a series of five single-word naming experiments, the locus of AoA effects are explored from a higher level of representation. Specifically the focus is on how context may influence the emergence of AoA during visual word recognition. Overall, results suggest that context has indeed a role on AoA which will be discussed within the current theoretical frameworks.