Effect of ease-of-acquisition on naming latency for Japanese kanji: a reanalysis of Yamazaki, et al.'s (1997) data.

Yamazaki, Ellis, Morrison, and Lambon Ralph in 1997 found two age-of-acquisition measures exerted greater independent effects on the naming latency of kanji than well-established variables such as word frequency. The current study is a sequel to that study but has reached a different conclusion. To find a better predictor than the two age-of-acquisition measures, Yamazaki, et al.'s data were reanalyzed with the new variable, ease-of-acquisition. The main finding was that the correlation between ease-of-acquisition at age 13 and naming latency was high .67 (df = 145, p < .001). The status of ease-of-acquisition and its possible role in psycholinguistic research are briefly discussed.