The influence of frequency across the time course of morphological processing: Evidence from the transposed-letter effect

The role that morphology plays in lexical access has been the subject of much debate, as has the influence of word frequency on morphological processing. The effect of frequency on morphological processing across the time course of lexical access was investigated using the transposed-letter effect. The results of two experiments (one masked-priming experiment and one eye-tracking experiment) outline a process in which morphological structure can be detected quickly and independently of frequency. The present study is also the first to show that transpositions that cross morpheme boundaries can be as disruptive as letter substitutions in inflected words, replicating earlier results with derived and compound words.