51 properties of 125 words: A unit analysis of verbal behavior
Abstract
Values for 125 words were obtained for 51 scales including measures of orthography,
pronunciation, imagery, categorizability, association, number of attributes, age-of-acquisition,
word frequency, goodness, emotionality, autobiographical memory, tachistoscopic recognition,
reading latency, lexical decision, incidental and intentional recall, recall using
a mnemonic pathway, paired-associate learning, and recognition. Six factors emerged:
Spelling and Sound, Imagery and Meaning, Word Frequency, Recall, Emotionality, and
Goodness. Implications for current methodology and theory are discussed, including
the claims: that multivariate research is a necessary addition to the study of verbal
behavior; that a unidimensional concept such as depth does not do justice to the complexity
of recall; and that associative frequency, emotionality, and pronunciability are among
the best predictors of our commonly used tasks. © 1980 Academic Press, Inc.
Type
Journal articleSubject
Social SciencesPsychology, Educational
Language & Linguistics
Psychology
Psychology, Experimental
Linguistics
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/18982Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1016/S0022-5371(80)90415-6Publication Info
Rubin, DC (1980). 51 properties of 125 words: A unit analysis of verbal behavior. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 19(6). pp. 736-755. 10.1016/S0022-5371(80)90415-6. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/18982.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
David C. Rubin
Juanita M. Kreps Distinguished Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
For .pdfs of all publications click here My main research interest has been in
long-term memory, especially for complex (or "real-world") stimuli. This work includes
the study of autobiographical memory and oral tra

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