Author Type

Graduate Student

Date of Award

2023

Document Type

Thesis

Publication Status

Version of Record

Submission Date

October 2026

Thesis/Dissertation Advisor [Chair]

Viktor Kharlamov

Abstract

This thesis analyzes if animacy facilitates the visual recognition of words in Spanish. I compared native-speaker reaction times to Spanish words with animate and inanimate referents in a word-nonword identification task, also known as the lexical decision task. Responses were collected from a database and coded for animacy as well as six lexical and semantic variables known to affect reading times. Linear mixed effects modeling suggested that participants responded to animate words significantly more quickly, independently of factors such as frequency and familiarity. The findings are interpreted from the perspective of parallel distributed processing model of word recognition in Seidenberg and McClelland (1989). The present study highlights the importance of animacy to language processing and presents one avenue through which we can understand which dimensions of the referential world are relevant to the processing and organization of language.

Extent

69 p.

Comments

Includes bibliography.|Thesis (MA)--Florida Atlantic University, 2023.|FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection|Includes bibliography.

Identifier

FA00014145

Format

pdf

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