HOWES AND SOLOMON (1951) conducted basic research using a t-scope recognition task and found correlations ranging from .68 to .79 between word frequency (according to Thorndike-Lorge norms) and the exposure duration necessary to correctly identify a word (i.e., recognition threshold). Thus uncommon words (such as words of sexual content) would need to be exposed longer to be identified than common words (which would require shorter exposure durations). Thus the higher thresholds McGinnies found for recognition of the “critical” words could be explained simply by the fact that they were less common than the neutral words. The sexual threatening content of the “critical” words may have nothing to do with explaining McGinnies’ results.

Please note that the two references in the syllabus (Thorndike and Lorge; Kuecera and Francis) are provided only for reference for use in your second study if you need to choose stimulus words of certain frequencies. These two references will not be on the home page.