Are two words recalled or recognised as one? How age-of-acquisition affects memory for compound words

The age at which a person acquires knowledge of an item is strong predictor retrieval, hereon defined as the Age Acquisition (AoA) effect. This effect such that early-acquired words are processed more quickly and accurately than late-acquired items. One account to explain this integrated account, where AoA occurs in early processes lexical retrieval hence should increase tasks necessitating greater semantic processing. Importantly, has been applied processing, but not, date, memory tasks. current study aimed assess whether could tasks, using compound words, differ from monomorphemic regarding ease mapping processes. Four-hundred-and-eighty participants were split into four groups 120 for each experiments. Participants required recall unspaced spaced (Experiments 1 2, respectively) or make recognition decision 3 4, respectively). approach allowed us establish how processing was involved recalling recognising We found related all irrespective space, recalled free recall. In memory, recognised words. However, slope influenced extent with being larger memory. addition, word demonstrates multiple sources.