Towards an Arabic Lexicon Project

Project description

The advent of mega studies such as the British Lexicon Project (BLP), the English Lexicon Project (ELP) or the Dutch Lexicon Project (DLP) have allowed researchers to analyse single trial response times (RTs) to lexical decision tasks (i.e., decision about whether stimuli presented on the screen are a word or not, e.g. stone’, ‘rcks’) with unprecedented detail. As a consequence, there is now a large body of literature contrasting parameter fits for various RT models, including the seminal drift-diffusion model and parametric descriptions such as the Ex-Gaussian distribution. Because of their reliance on European languages, an open question remains whether these results generalise to non-European languages such as Arabic.

The present study aims at rectifying this gap in our knowledge. The first part of the project consists of collecting RTs from lexical decision tasks in Arabic, which will be a first step towards establishing an Arabic Lexicon Project. In the second part, this new data set will be analysed using process models such as the drift-diffusion model, established probability distributions including the Wald, Ex-Gaussian and log-normal distribution as well as the Bayesian Reader. The goal of this analysis is two-fold. Firstly, do these models, which have been primarily tested and validated for European languages, provide convincing fits to Arabic words? Secondly, if they do, how do the parameters of the models compare with those obtained for European languages? The results from the second question will be particularly interesting for ascertaining differences and commonalities in the cognitive processes that underpin lexical decisions in different languages with different scripts. The project will be undertaken in close collaboration with Prof Kathy Conklin in the School of English.