Is the loci of age of acquisition semantically or phonologically based? : a mixed effect model analysis

Abstract

The effect of Age-of-Acquisition (AoA) on visual word recognition is well-recognized across different languages, however, it is contested whether the loci of AoA is semantically-based or phonologically-based. This research explored the loci of AoA in visual word recognition on 4334 Chinese characters extracted from the Cantonese lexicon database. Participants performed a lexical decision task, while AoA, imageability and Phonological Regularity (PR) were manipulated in the real characters. Using a mixed effect modelling approach, an AoA effect was found where the characters learned early were recognized-faster and less error prone than the later-acquired characters. Critically, AoA interacted with imageability where AoA effects were larger for characters that were more difficult to imagine, suggesting that AoA has a semantic locus. Meanwhile, no interaction between AoA and PR was found, suggesting that AoA does not have a phonological locus. On a theoretical level, the findings lend credence to the Semantic Hypothesis, while the Arbitrary Mapping (AM) Hypothesis to explain the phonological loci of AoA was not supported.