Macroeconomics

Linguistics

Cognitive psychology

Philosophy

Communication

Biology

Cartography

Embedded system

Selection (genetic algorithm)

Economics

Set (abstract data type)

Computer science

Lexicon

Lexical item

Paleontology

Natural language processing

Test (biology)

CATS

Psychology

Geography

Artificial intelligence

Sentence

Programming language

Word (group theory)

Compass

Kitten

Production (economics)

Word lists by frequency

Psychological Science

Dominant theories of language production suggest that word choice-lexical selection-is driven by alignment with the intended message: To talk about a young feline, we choose the most aligned word, kitten. Another factor that could shape lexical selection is word accessibility, or how easy it is to produce a given word (e.g., cat is more accessible than kitten). To test whether producers are also influenced by word accessibility, we designed an artificial lexicon containing high- and low-frequency words whose meanings correspond to compass directions. Participants in a communication game (total N = 181 adults) earned points by producing compass directions, which often required an implicit decision between a high- and low-frequency word. A trade-off was observed across four experiments; specifically, high-frequency words were produced even when less aligned with messages. These results suggest that implicit decisions between words are impacted by accessibility. Of all the times that people have produced cat, sometimes they likely meant kitten.

Good-Enough Production: Selecting Easier Words Instead of More Accurate Ones