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( DOCUMENT RESUME ED 220 813 CS 006 802 AUTHOR Blanchard, Harry E.; And Others TITLE Contextual Predictability Normt for Pairs of Words. Differing in a Single Letter. Technical Report No. 260. INSTITUTION Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc., Cambridge, Mass.; Illinoi Univ., Urbana. Center for the Study of Reading. SPONS AGENCY Nat Inst. of Education (ED), Washington, DC.; National Inst. of Mental Health (DHHS), Rockville, Md. N\ PUB DATE Aug 82 . CONTRACT 400-76-0116 GRANT NIMH-MH-32884; NIMH-MH-33408 NOTE 192p. EDRS PRICE MF01/PC08 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Norms; *Perception Tests; *Predictive Validity; *Reading Research; *Research Tools; Research Utilization; *Resource Materials ABSTRACT To conduct a series of studies and to provide .other A researchers with texts that may prove useful in answeringa variety ofIlquestions about perception in reading, itwas.necessary for two researchers to create pairs of texts thatwere different in meaning but were physically different in only one letter. These texts were created by first identifying pairs of words thit differed, ina single letter and then writing a context of one or more sentences in which either member of the pair would fit and make sense at thesame word position in the text, (For example, "leaks/leans" in."The shed...ge... much it is unusable.") After the introduction, the first section of the document describes the construction.of the materials, the two . questionnaires used to determine the predictability of the critical word in the texts, the organization of the norms, and the potential uses of the norms in research. The bulk of the document then presents the words-themselves, organized by length, from three to seven letters and by 3,arts of speech and shape of the pair. (JL) # .. *********************************************************************** * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made * * from the original document: * *********************************************************************** US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) )(is document has been rproduced as CENTER FOR THE STUDY CPI' READING stewedfrom the person or organization originating it Minot shantieshavbeen made to improve reproductionOwlity Points of view or opinions stated in this docu mem do not nekessattly represent (dim wINIE position oi policy Technical Report No. 260 CONTEXTUAL PREDICTABILIT NORMS FOR PAIRS OF WORDS DIFFERING IN A SINGLE LE TER Harry E. Blanchard, George W. McConkie and David Zola Univer'sity of Illinis at Urbana-Champaign August 1982 University of Illinois at Urbana-Shampaign _Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc. 51 Gerty Drive 50 Moulton Street Champaigrt, Illinois 61820 Cambridge, Massachusetts 02238 This research was conducted under grants MH 32884 and MH 33408 fromthe National Institute of Mental Healthto the first author, and National Institute of Education coritract4WAG-4-400-76-0116 to the Center for the Study of Reading. Copies of this report can be obtained bfwriting to George W. McConkie, Centerfor the Study of Reading, 51 Gerty Drive, Champaign, Illinois 61820. Abstract Four hundred sixty-seven pairs of short textswere written. The members of each pair differ only)py a single letter inone word. 'Two sets of predicta- bility norms were obtained for the word pairs containingthe distinguishing letters. These texts were used in several studieson perception within and across fixations in reading, and may prove useful to researchers interestedin a variety bf questions about perception in reading. Predictability Norms . Contextual Predictability Norms for Pairs of Words Differing in a Single Letter In order to conduct a series of studies in,our laboratory, itwas rieces- sary to create pafrs of short texts which were different in meaning butwere physically different in only one letter. These texts were created by first identifying pairs of words which differed in a single letter ahd, then.writing a context of one or more sentences in which either member of the pair .would fit and make sense at the same word position in the text. For example, either member of the word pair, leaks/leans fits into the context, "The shed so' .% much it is unusable." As a result, there are two different versions of each text distinguished only by a single letter in one word. In addition, it was necessary to obtain predictability norms for these yoi"ds, given the text prior to that word position. Having created the sentences and obtained the norming /knformation, it appeared likely that these materials could be useful toother researchers interested in studying perceptual or languageprocesses in read- . ing. This led us to compile the information in the form presented here io it 0 could be available to others. The following sections describe the set of text, pairs, the process of norming the materials for pVedictability, the nature of the normative data presented here, and some possibleuses for these materials. In the following discussion, the letter that distinguishes the two iersions of / a tex; will be referred to as the critical letleri and the word which contns T critical letter will be referred to as the critiDal mord. , IA Predictability Norms 2 Construction of the_ matgrials The word paits used to construct the texts were classified along f6ur dimensions which pro ed 52 groups of word pairs, as summarized in Table 1. The first dimen on wad word J.egth: three, five, and seven letter words were chosen for these texts. Second is the letter position of the critical letter in the critical word. Three and five letter words could differ in any of the letter positions of the word. Seven letter words could differ in the first, second, fourth, sixth, or seventh letter positions. The third dimension is Dart 91 speech. The word paird were didhotomousiy classified. TwAategories were used, one containing nouns and the other verbs and adjectives. Finally, the 'word pairs were distinguished by tiieir contrast in word shape. The members of a,word pair had either the same or different outline word shape or envelope (cf. Haber &_Haber, 1981). For example, the words cling and_wank, differ in shape, because one critical letter, z, is a descender and the other, k, is an ascender, while the words srice and _prize do not differ in shape, because both critical letter; g. and z are short letters. TABLE 1. Classification hierarchy for word pairs. 1 1 Word length 11 3 5 1 7 I . I ILetter position 11 I 1,2,3 1 1,2,3,4,5 1,2,4,6,7' 1 1 Part of speechII noun,verb/adj. i noun,verb/adj. I noun,verb/adj. I Word shape 11. I 1 same,diff. same,diff. L, same,diff. I I Total groups II 12 I 20 I 20 . Predictability Norms 3 7 The sentence pontexts for the words were written to beas natural as pos- sible. Emphasis was placed on avoiding sentences whichwere unusual or bizarre because of the constraints placed on them. The sentences were written so that was not obvious which word was the critical word. That is, the sen- tence was not written around the'critical word, but, rather, the griticalword was written into an in8onspicuous place in the text. In addition, besides the target pair of words, members of othei- word pairs differingby a single letter were deliberately written into the sentences. This was done partly to avoid . focusing the sentence around the c) tical word, and partly to provide addi- i tional words by which retention could be tested. Such pairs ball be referred to as pon-critical pairs. For most of these non-critical pairs, only one of the two words syntactically and sematically fit into the text. For a few texts, both' words did. These non-critical word pairs are also listed in the norms, and may be useful for testing or other pur'poses, but predictability information is not provided. To test retention in our studies, one of the non-ci-itical word pairs was usually used. In a few instances, however, we used a word pair which did not appear in the text. TheSe pairs have also been included in the-norms. At least six texts ifere written for 51 of the 52 categories of word e pairs. The remaining category, seveil letter nouns contrasting in the seventh letter and having the -same word shape, did not have enough word pairs towrite six reasonable texts. To balance groups in our experiments, extra texts from seven letter.nouns contrasting in the seventh letter but different in word shape were assigned to this category. These extra texts are presented here in Predictability Norms v. the appropriate category. Many of the other 51 categories contain more than six texts. With the exception of five letter words contrasting in the first . and fourth letters, only the first six texts listed under each categoryhave been used in our studies, and these are typically the most natural-sounding members of the category. There are 456 texts overall. An additional 21 texts containing five letter word pairs contrasting in thefirst or-fourth letters were written to provide extra materials for one experiment. Since complete predictability data were not.collected on these extra 21 sentences, theyhave . been labeled differently. Data on Predictability . Two questionnaires were prepared in order to determine the predictability of the critical word in the texts.eIn the firet one, the word questionnaire, subjects were given the texts up to and including theword before the critical word, asip Fig, 1. PASSAGE 6 On their first trip to Yellowstone, the noisy young campers were in for a nasty surprise. A marauding black bear apparently heard a Figure 1.- Example of text as given in word questionn4re. They were instrOcted to,complete thqksentence by writing Wee wordsor more to finish the thought: Supjects wew told to give at least three words: if they completed the sentence in less they were to begin another sentence.

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