an old problem for the new psychosemantics synonymity

Psychological Bulletin1978, Vol. 85, No. 3, 490-512

An Old Problem for the New Psychosemantics: Synonymity

Douglas J. HerrmannHamilton College

Although synonymity has long been an important problem in semantics, recentreviews on psychosemantics have had little or nothing to say about the topic,probably because the relevant research has been buried in the literature of manydiverse areas. The present article reviews most of the psychological studies thathave used synonyms and relates the findings to current data and theory in psy-chosemantics. The results indicate that comprehension of synonymity betweenwords is similar to comprehension of other semantic relationships. Moreover,synonym relationships are covertly elicited in a multitude of different situations.Finally, it is shown that, psychologically, synonymity may depend on morefactors than have been considered by traditional semantics.

Interest in synonymity 1 dates back at leastto ancient Greece (Aristotle, c. 380 B.C./19S2).In modern times this interest continues. Majorsemanticists invariably include an understand-ing of synonymity among the primary goalsof investigation in the science of meaning(Bierwisch, 1970; Katz, 1972; Quine, 1960;Ullmann, 1962); moreover, three authors haverecently devoted complete books to the sub-ject (Harris, 1973; Jones, 1964; Naess,19S3). Because of the perennial attentiongiven to synonymity it seems surprising thatrecent reviews of psycholinguistics or psycho-semantic research have had little or nothingto say on the psychological study of synonyms(cf. Cairns & Cairns, 1976; Clark & Clark,1977; Deese, 1970; Ervin-Tripp & Slobin,1966; Fillenbaum, 1971; Fodor, Bever, &Garrett, 1974; Glucksberg & Banks, 1975;Hormann, 1971; Johnson-Laird, 1974; Per-fetti, 1972; Slobin, 1971; Smith, 1977). Thislack of psychosemantic attention to synonym-ity is probably not due to a lack of interest in

The author is indebted to William P. Banks, JohnB. Carroll, Roger J. S. Chaffin, Herbert H. Clark,George A. Geseheider, Edward E. Smith, DouglasRaybeck, and several other colleagues and studentsfar valuable advice on substantive issues and onearlier drafts of this article.

Requests for reprints should be sent to Douglas J.Herrmann, Department of Psychology, Hamilton Col-lege, Clinton, New York 13323.

the topic. Many areas of psychological re-search have employed synonyms in numerousinvestigations to determine the effect of mean-ing on a particular process, for example, learn-ing. Since synonyms have been used so fre-quently in many research areas, a thoroughreview of the literature dealing with the effectsof synonyms should be useful to future in-vestigators who also wish to vary similarity inmeaning. Commonalities in findings involvingsynonyms, discovered by a literature review,may also help in the development of a psycho-logical theory of meaning. It is the purpose ofthis article to provide such a review.

Conceptions of Synonymity

The English language is rich in synonyms(Cherry, 1957; Partridge, 1939). Layman andscholar alike know intuitively what constitutessynonymity in that they possess the compe-tence to recognize when words are synony-mous. Nevertheless, this semantic relationshiphas been conceptualized by various experts in

1 Although synonymy and synonymity are oftenregarded as being synonymous, the former refers to"the study . . . of words which may be 'Confused inmeaning," whereas the latter refers to "the qualityof ... being synonymous" (Webster's Third, p. 2321).Since this article deals almost exclusively with thesynonymous quality, the topic of the article is syn-onymity.

Copyright 1978 by the American Psychological Association, Inc. 0033-2909/78/8503-0490$00.75

490

SYNONYMITY 491

at least five ways, which can be ordered inincreasing complexity. First, synonyms aremost commonly denned as different wordforms (or constructions, phrases, clauses, sen-tences) that have the same meaning (Clark &Clark, 1977; Lyons, 1967; Mates, 19SO;Searle, 1969). This definition has been chal-lenged by Bloomfield (1933), who arguedthat different forms presumably convey dif-ferent meanings, and therefore actual syn-onyms cannot exist. It is questionable, though,whether language functions quite so logicallyand perfectly as Bloomfield assumed. For ex-ample, different synonymous forms may comeinto existence by originating in different sub-groups of the speech community or from con-tact with foreign cultures. However, it shouldbe noted that many philosophers have alsospent considerable effort attempting to denythe existence of synonyms (Goodman, 1949;Putnam, 1954; Rollins, 19SO; Rudner, 1950;Thomson, 1952; White, 1958; see Harris,1973, for refutations of this position).

Second, synonyms have been viewed byphilosophers and semanticists as being of twokinds, those that are identical in meaning,absolute, exact, or total synonyms, and thosethat are similar in meaning, partial or approxi-mate synonyms (Abraham & Keifer, 1966;Duchacek, 1964; Goodman, 1949; Partridge,1939; Skinner, 1957; Jones, 1964; Ullmann,1962; Ziff, 1960). Some theorists (e.g., Ziff,1960) have denied the existence of absolutesynonyms, regardless of whether synonymityexists between two words that each representa single meaning or two words that each repre-sent several meanings with one meaning incommon. This denial is based on the assertionthat even for so-called absolute synonyms,careful examination will reveal differentshades of meaning, however subtle. Some se-manticists, though, feel that such differencesin absolute synonyms are really due to non-definitional, associative characteristics of aword's meaning, which should not be consid-ered as criteria for synonymity (Lyons, 1968;Quine, 1953; Trubetzkoy, 1939). Alterna-tively, others assert that absolute synonyms doexist, although the number of such words ispresumably very few (Fowler, 1926/1965;Partridge, 1939).

A third way in which synonymity has beenconceived is in terms of the interchangeabilityof words in sentences (Lyons, 1968; Mates,1950; Putnam, 1954; Quine, 1953). Thus,synonyms may be defined operationally as_being words that can substitute for one an-other in all relevant sentences without chang-ing sentence meaning (cf. Ogden & Richards,1923). However, if one accepts the proposi-tion that some words may be synonymous incertain sentences but not in others, then sub-stitutability cannot serve as a sufficient cri-terion of synonymity (Linsky, 1967; Naess,1957). The interchangeability criterion suffersfrom another critical defect: Some sentencescan accept two words in substitution that areclearly not synonymous. As Clark (1968) haspointed out, synonyms and antonyms areequally interchangeable in some sentences.Thus, just as lack of substitutability in somesentences does not rule out partial synonymitybetween words, the fulfillment of substitutabil-ity in some sentences does not necessarily con-firm synonymity between words. The inter-changeability test is only useful in evaluatingthe relationship between a pair of words if ap-plied to a large number of sentences withvarying semantic content. Across sentences,the number of acceptable substitutions wouldbe expected to increase with increases in par-tial synonymity, and of course, at the limit,synonyms should be substitutable more oftenthan nonsynonyms (cf. Brewer, 1975; Jones,1964, 1965).

A fourth conception of synonyms requiresthat the words be identical in reference (cf.Olson, 1970) or, more commonly, in denota-tion (Stern, 1931; Webster's New Dictionaryof Synonyms, 1973) or, finally, in evoking thesame or similar images (Bower, 1972). Al-though the referential requirement may workwith concrete words, what about abstractwords? Also many philosophers have arguedthat reference cannot be a sufficient criterionfor synonymity because two terms may havethe same referent but different meaning(Quine, 1953). The President and the swimmercan both be accurate in reference in the sen-tence, "X crossed the White House pool." Butthe meanings of President and swimmer areclearly different and certainly not synony-

492 DOUGLAS J. HERRMANN

mous. Lyons (1968) argued that instead ofreference, synonyms should be denned aswords with the same sense, that is, the rela-tion the word has with other words in theJexicon. Although synonymity cannot be basedsolely on reference, it also seems obvious thatin many situations reference can serve as acriterion of whether words are partial or exactsynonyms. All four-door cars are sedans butnot all are jalopies. Similarly not all jalopiesare sedans. Thus, sedan and jalopy must bepartial synonyms.

A fifth perspective on synonymity postu-lates that synonyms are subsumed under theterminal nodes of a hierarchical structure thatdefines the meaning relationships of all wordsin the language. Each node represents aunique denotative meaning, and the word at-tached to a node is the symbol for that node'smeaning. Synonyms are defined as differentwords that are attached to the same node.Roget (1962) is best known for proposing aclassification scheme for synonyms, purport-edly based on a superordinate conceptualstructure of word meanings. Others have alsofollowed this approach to synonymy, for ex-ample, Hartrampf (1937). Although such hi-erarchical systems seem plausible, their logicalorganization is not rigorously defined and doesnot in the end specify each and every set ofsynonymous words. Therefore, the hierarchydoes not in actuality explicate the basis ofsynonymity but is merely a hypothesis of howsynonymity might fit into a complete and or-ganized semantic memory.

The preceding conceptions of synonymityare related to each other, but they refer todifferent linguistic phenomena. As Naess(1953) pointed out, there may not be onetrue conception of synonymity but severalkinds of synonymity that depend on the situa-tion of use. Thus, no single account of syno-nymity has emerged as the best from a theo-retical viewpoint. Of the five conceptions,psychologists have generally conceived of syn-onyms as simply words with the same mean-ing. Nevertheless, many psychologists haveused the concept of partial synonymity, anda few have invoked the remaining conceptionsof interchangeability, reference, and the hier-archical knowledge base. No psychologicalwork however, has concerned itself with all of

these conceptions of synonymity, and mostarticles have not indicated an awareness ofthese conceptions other than similarity inmeaning. The research below in part evaluatesthe adequacy of the above conceptions from apsychosemantic standpoint (as compared witha logical, philosophical, or semantic one).

Structure of Word Meaning and Synonymity

In order to understand research on syn-onyms, the representation of word meaningin semantic memory is discussed before find-ings from synonym research are covered.Philosophers, linguists, semanticists, and psy-chologists have discussed several kinds of wordmeaning that enter into the processing anduse of synonyms. First, there is denotativemeaning, defined as the generic meaning ofthe objects and situations to which a wordrefers (Glucksberg & Banks, 197S).2

Denotative meaning, as is shown below,must be further divided into general meaning

2 Semantics has traditionally defined denotation asextensional, 'that is, the reference of a word, and con-notation as intensional, that is, the attributes thatcharacterize the meaning of a word. Although inten-sional meaning must depend in part on the extensionof a word, semanticists, philosophers, and logicianshave preferred to keep the two aspects of wordmeaning separate (Ogden & Richards, 1923). In con-trast, psychology has used denotation not only ex-tensionally but also intensionally. For example,Glucksberg and Danks (1975) defined denotation asthe generic concept to which a word refers. Similarly,Smith, Shoben, and Rips (1975) .discussed denotationin terms of the attributes of a word that apply to award's referent. Thus, like semantics, psychology hasoften used denotation extensionally, but unlike se-mantics, psychology has 'also used the term inten-sionally.

Connotation has generally been used by psycholo-gists to indicate other aspects of meaning not directlyrelevant to reference, particularly attitudinal or affec-tive characteristics of a word (e.g., Osgood, 1959;Osgood, Suci, & Tannenbaum, 1957). Thus, likesemantics, psychology has treated connotation as in-tensional, but unlike semantics, psychology has usedconnotation iratensionally only insofar as connota-tive attributes bear on nonreferential details of mean-ing (cf. Stebbing, 1966; Weinreich, 1958, 1959). Thepresent article uses denotation and connotation inthe sense in which psychology has employed theseterms. If the semantic references cited here, are con-sulted by the reader, please be aware that the sourceis likely to use denotation and connotation some-what differently from 'psychologists.

SYNONYMITY 493

and specific meaning in order to deal withsynonymity. Philosophers and writers throughthe ages have discussed the difference be-tween the general or broad sense of a word,derived from the core of a word's meaning,and the specific or narrow sense of a wordstemming from restrictions on the use of aword for precise communication (Adler &Gorman, 19S2; Goodenough, 1956; Louns-bury, 1964; K. Nelson, 1974; Nida, 1958;Smith, Shoben, & Rips, 1974). Synonyms canbe used interchangeably in many situations,that is, the broad meaning, but on occasion,a speaker or writer will find only one or twowords applicable in a set of synonyms. Theterm synonym set (Weinreich, 1962) is usedbelow to refer to those words that have thesame general meaning (cf. Ohman, 1953; Scur,1973; Trier, 1934; Weisgerber, 1962). Forexample, while talking about a stock carderby, one may use the word sedan, but forcertain sedan entries in the race, jalopy mayseem particularly appropriate. Sedan and ja-lopy share the same general meaning of car,

but jalopy also carries the additional specificmeaning of beat-up, old, and run-down. Spe-cific meaning does not destroy synonymity,since sedan and jalopy are often interchange-able. The distinction between general andspecific features, as is shown below, is neces-sary to account for various psychological find-ings, reviewed in this article, concerning syn-onyms. Therefore, this distinction is one of themost important psychosemantic constructssuggested by the field of synonym research.

The next kind of meaning is connotative,which is comprised of nondenotative ideas re-lated to the denotative meaning. Connotativemeaning is often equated with affective mean-ing (Glucksberg & Banks, 1975; Osgood, Suci,& Tannenbaum, 1957; Snider & Osgood,1969). Although the words in a synonym setprobably agree closely on connotative mean-ing, in some cases connotative features of aword may restrict usage in the same way asdo specific, denotative features. Finally, somesynonyms in the language are marked for cer-tain social situations, although they have the

Table 1Some Relationships Between Words, Based on Different Kinds of Meaning, Which Semanticallyand Psychologically May Underlie Synonymity

B DKind ofmeaning Wl W2 W3 W4 WS W6 W7 W8 W9

Sociolinguistic

ConnotativeAffectiveOther

DenotativeSpecific

General

Note. W = word. Each kind of meaning is composed of various attributes (unspecified in the table). Thepresence of a + sign in the column under a word indicates that the word is defined on that attribute in se-mantic memory. Panels A, B, C, and D represent four ways in which synonymous relationships may originatefrom words possessing similar profiles of semantic features.


same denotative meaning. For example, whenin polite company one will ask for the bath-room rather than the John. Thus, sociolin-guistic meaning can also affect use of syn-onyms.

The different kinds of meaning, as repre-sented by a feature model of meaning (cf.Katz & Fodor, 1963), are illustrated in Table1 (cf. Leech, 1974; Smith et al., 1974). Inthe table, Wl through W9 represent the wordsof a synonym set, and panels A, B, C, and Drepresent four subsets that illustrate variousaspects of synonymity. Panel A presents Wland W2, which are exact synonyms because ofagreement on general denotative features and,according to Lyons (1968), are also com-plete synonyms because of agreement on con-notative features. W3 and W4 in panel B arealso exact synonyms, but in this case agree-ment is on specific as well as on general de-notative features. Since exactness is highlyidiosyncratic (if exact synonyms exist at all),widely accepted examples of exact synonyms,represented in panels A and B, are impossibleto find. Nevertheless, the reader can consultFowler (1926/1965), who claimed that furzeand gorse are exact synonyms. Panel C, whichconsists of WS and W6, illustrates the tradi-tional conception of synonymity, words agree-ing on all denotative features, such as bath-room and John. W7, W8, and W9 in panel Dare partial synonyms of one another due tovarying degrees of agreement on specific fea-tures. If people were asked to judge the simi-larity in meaning of these three words, W7and W8 or W8 and W9 would be evaluated asmore similar than W7 and W9. For example,W7 might be disturb; W8, bother; and W9,annoy. All three words share the generalmeaning of disruption; bother and annoy, par-ticularly the latter, also indicate the specificmeaning of irritation. Table 1 also illustratesone of the major conclusions to be drawnfrom the following literature review: Syn-onymity appears to involve not only denota-tive meaning but also all other kinds ofmeaning.

Scope of Review

Basically, two kinds of responses have beenrequired by experiments involving synonyms.

The many and varied articles reviewed hereare discussed according to the two kinds ofresponses. One kind of response required ofa subject has been to indicate overtly compre-hension of synonymity, hereafter referred toas an overt synonym response (OSR). An ex-ample of an OSR is a subject deciding that apair of words are or are not synonyms. An-other example of an OSR is a subject produc-ing on request a synonym of a stimulus word.In contrast with studies requiring OSRs, muchresearch has had subjects make responses thathave nothing to do directly with comprehen-sion, for example, recognizing a word as be-longing to a previously presented list. Suchtasks do not require processing of synonym-ity, but the goal of this research has been toexamine the effect of synonymity on a de-pendent variable, for example, recognition ac-curacy. In such experimentation, if synonymsproduce an effect, it can be inferred that thesubject responded covertly to synonymity,that is, the subject made a covert synonymresponse (CSR). CSRs do not necessarily in-dicate conscious comprehension of synonymity.

The review below first covers research deal-ing with OSRs, then, investigations withCSRs, and a discussion of issues common toboth areas. Sentence synonymity, and devel-opmental differences on synonym comprehen-sion are outside of the scope of the presentarticle.3 The review reveals a remarkably con-sistent pattern of results across many differentprocedures and tasks.

Overt Synonym Comprehension

Many experiments have required an overtresponse indicating comprehension of syno-nymity. Much of this research has been con-cerned with ratings of the similarity betweenwords and OSRs. In the following sections, itis seen that research on OSRs has supportedall of the five conceptions of synonymity dis-

3 Additional bibliographies on synonym theory andresearch are available from the author: (a) semanticand philosophical references on synonymy supple-mentary .to those listed here, (b) investigations con-cerned with development of synonym comprehensionin children, and (c) references on synonymity ofsentences.

SYNONYMITY 495

cussed above. Additionally, OSR results shedlight on the relationships between synonymityand other word-similarity classifications, bothsensory (e.g., homonyms) and semantic (e.g.,hyponyms).

Simttarity-in-Meaning Scales

The second conception of synonymity positsthe existence of absolute synonyms and par-tial synonyms. From such a distinction it is ashort step to the proposition that synonymityvaries along a continuum of similarity inmeaning. Although it is not clear if psycholo-gists were aware of the semanticists' concep-tion of absolute and partial synonymity, sev-eral psychologists have investigated people'sjudgments of similarity in meaning.

The similarity in meaning between twowords, synonymous or otherwise, can be ratedby subjects on a Likert-type scale rangingfrom Unrelated to Identical in Meaning.Typical ratings for various synonyms havebeen provided by similarity-in-meaning norms(Haagen, 1949; Rocklyn, Hessert, & Braun,1957; Umemoto, Morikawa, & Ibuki, 19SS;Melton & Safier, Note 1). Similarity-in-mean-ing ratings have been shown to exhibit a highdegree of agreement between subjects andacross different testing sessions (Rubenstein& Goodenough, 196S). However, when one ortwo words in a synonym pair possess multiplemeanings, similarity in meaning is somewhatlower if synonymity involves a less frequentmeaning of a word or words in a synonympair (cf. Rubenstein & Goodenough, cited inRubenstein, 1974; Papperman & Herrmann,Note 2).

Similarity in meaning was found in onestudy to correlate very highly (.9) with rat-ings of closeness in associative connections(Haagen, 1949). Subsequent research, how-ever, has suggested that this relationship isnot nearly as high as was originally indicated.Associative overlap for two synonyms has beenfound in two separate studies to have in-creased as similarity-in-meaning ratings in-creased in the lower and upper segments ofthe range for the ratings. In the intermediateportion of the range, associative overlap re-mained constant. For example, Cofer (19S7)had subjects produce free associations for

each word in many synonym pairs and thencomputed the percentage of common associ-ates out of all associates given for the wordsin a pair. He found that, as described above,associative overlap in a synonym pair covarieddirectly with similarity only at the extremes ofsimilarity. Likewise, Rubenstein and Good-enough (1965) had one group of subjects ratesimilarity of meaning and another group pro-duce sentences for a list of synonyms, associ-ates, and unrelated words. The aforemen-tioned relationship was again found betweensimilarity in meaning and associative overlap,measured in this case by the overlap in wordsused in sentences.

There is other evidence that also indicatesthat the correlation between similarity inmeaning and associative connections is not ashigh as was reported by Haagen (1949).Flavell and Flavell (1959) required subjectsto choose between two pairs of words on thebasis of (a) closeness in meaning and then(b) degree of associative relationship. Essen-tially, four kinds of stimuli were presented:synonyms with exactly or almost exactly thesame referent, for example, sofa-couch; syn-onyms or near synonyms differing on somedimension, for example, damp-wet; a varietyof associative relationship, for example, hot-dog; and antonyms, for example, hot-cold. Arank ordering of meaningful similarity choices,from most to least similar, was exact syn-onyms, partial synonyms, associated words,and antonyms (see Benedetti, 1958; Weiss-Shed, 1973). Moreover, when subjects chosethe pair with the strongest associative over-lap, synonyms were approximately the middleof the rank order of associative choices. Syn-onyms are clearly not the highest form ofassociation, and degree of association is not anunequivocal indicator of synonymity or de-gree of partial synonymity.

In addition to reflecting associative rela-tionships, similarity-in-meaning ratings ap-pear also to indicate similarity in connotativemeaning. Rowan (1954) and Flavell (1961)found ratings of similarity in meaning to becorrelated with semantic-differential measures.Wimer (1963) concluded from a comprehen-sive study of various rating measures that"connotative similarity between words ap-


peared to be part of the bases for their beingjudged similar" (p. 404). Although these stud-ies suggest that connotative meaning is in-volved in comprehension of synonymity, theirresults are not conclusive on this point. Vir-tually all of the similarity studies (except seeHaagen, 1949) did not specify synonymity asthe criterion of the rating scale in directionsto subjects. Thus, similarity-in-meaning scoresdo not distinguish synonyms from nonsyn-onyms and may confound other kinds ofmeaning with synonymity. In order to deter-mine clearly the role of other kinds of mean-ing in synonymity with a rating measure, itis necessary to compare ratings obtained frominstructions to judge synonymity with ratingsobtained from instructions to judge similarityon each of the different kinds of meaning,namely denotation, connotation, and sociolin-guistic meaning.

The similarity-in-meaning measure has alsobeen shown to covary with other measuresthat reflect the interchangeability criterion ofsynonymity. Goodenough (cited in Ruben-stein, 1974) took sentences generated for eachword in a pair of synonyms (from Rubenstein& Goodenough, 1965) and exchanged the syn-onyms in the sentences. Goodenough thencomputed the percentage of sentences inwhich the meaning was unchanged or changedin a "sensible and stylistic" way and correlatedthe percentage of substitutability per synonympair with the similarity-in-meaning measure.The relationship between the variables wasstrong, r = .88, showing that the similaritymeasure predicts interchangeability. Consist-ent with this result, a measure of overlap inthe context of words comprising dissertationtitles was found by Lewis, Baxendale, andBennett (1967) to discriminate synonymsfrom semantically related nonsynonyms andunrelated nonsynonyms. Theoretical argu-ments as to why overlap measures should becapable of distinguishing synonyms from non-synonyms have been provided by Giuliano(Note 3), Jones (1964, 1965), and Lewis etal. (1967).

Naess (1953) investigated the effect of dif-ferent instructions on substitutability judg-ments. He concluded that variations in in-structions had a negligible effect on the num-

ber of acceptable substitutions ascertained byjudges. Naess also concluded that his dataindicated that synonymity is symmetric; thatis, if Wa and Wb are synonymous, Wft is assimilar to Wb as Wb is similar to W8. How-ever, Naess's evidence for this conclusion isextremely weak by current investigatory stan-dards. First, he based his conclusions aboutsynonyms in general on less than a dozenpairs of synonyms (cf. Clark, 1973). Second,10% of his subjects' responses were ambiguousas to acceptable substitutability. Naess dis-carded these data as due to perturbations inthe subject, not realizing that such ambiguityin responding may have been the product ofasymmetry in his synonyms. Nevertheless, noone has explored the procedures for estimatingsubstitutability more than Naess, and despitesome statistical weaknesses, Naess's (1953)book, Interpretation and Preciseness, offersmany valuable insights, procedural and theo-retical.

The referential criterion for synonymityalso appears to be reflected by similarity-in-meaning ratings. Flavell (1961), besidesobtaining similarity estimates, required sub-jects to rate co-occurrence probability ofwords in a pair, that is, the likelihood that theobjects, events, or properties represented bythe two words are found to co-occur in theenvironment. Co-occurrence probability, es-sentially an estimate of reference co-occur-rence, correlated highly with meaning simi-larity (r-.91). Nevertheless, an objectivemeasure of referential co-occurrence shouldalso be studied before fully accepting theimplication of Flavell's correlation, namely,that similarity-in-meaning ratings have areferential base.

The hypothesis that synonymity is based ona massive hierarchical tree of knowledge isalso supported by similarity-in-meaning rat-ings. Rubenstein and Goodenough (cited inRubenstein, 1974) studied the distance be-tween members of synonym pairs mapped onthe tree-structure model devised by Roget.For their set of 65 such synonym pairs, theyfound a correlation of r = .85 between prox-imity in the tree and ratings of meaning simi-larity.

SYNONYMITY 497

Synonym-Comprehension Latency

Research has shown that latency to recog-nize synonymity varies with semantic simi-larity between words in a synonym pair, thatis, with degree of partial synonymity. Fillen-baum (1964), in an experiment on semanticsatiation, investigated the time necessary todecide whether or not a pair of words weresynonyms. (The results bearing on satiationare not described here.) The latency of theOSR was faster with close synonyms thanwith jar synonyms, where close and far syno-nymity were based on similarity-in-meaningratings from Haagen's list. Nonsynonym re-sponses took a longer amount of time thanclose synonym responses and less time thanfar synonym responses. Overall, synonym re-sponses took longer than nonsynonym re-sponses. This last result has also been shownin a bilingual context (Segalowitz & Lambert,1969). Also, semantic similarity has beenobserved to affect the time needed to recallcommon attributes shared by synonyms(Flavell & Johnson, 1961). Conversely, thedecision that two words are not synonymouswas found by Sabol and DeRosa (1976) tobe slower for words related in meaning due tobeing antonyms than for unrelated words.

Fillenbaum's (1964) results, replicated byEsposito and Pelton (1969), are identical tothe effect of semantic similarity on "yes"categorization latency. For example, Rips,Shoben, and Smith (1973) found that thelatency to decide if two words belonged tothe same category (e.g., birds) was faster forvery similar exemplars (e.g., robin-sparrow)than for less similar exemplars (e.g., robin-duck). Conversely Sabol and DeRosa's(1976) finding for the not-synonymous deci-sion resembles the effect of semantic related-ness on "no" categorization latency. Forexample, Schaeffer and Wallace (1970) foundthat the latency to decide whether two wordsbelonged to different categories was slowerfor related words, for example, parrot—giraffe(categories were birds and animals), than forunrelated words, for example, parrot-cedar(categories were birds and trees). Severalmodels of the categorization process havebeen developed that account for similarityeffects on categorization latency (Collins &

Loftus, 197S; Glass & Holyoak, 1975; Meyer& Schvaneveldt, 1976; Smith, Shoben, &Rips, 1974). Since semantic similarity ap-pears to affect synonym comprehension andcategorization in the same manner, models ofcategorization may also be generalizable, withminor modifications, to the comprehension ofsynonyms. Determination of which categori-zation model is most appropriate as a modelof synonym comprehension, however, is pres-ently not possible because all of the modelsmentioned above have been equally success-ful in accounting for similarity effects (cf.Smith, 1977). Thus, more research is neces-sary to ascertain which model best accountsfor synonym comprehension.

The latency of synonym comprehensionalso appears to be affected by the number ofmeanings possessed by stimulus words andthe frequency or dominance of meanings forstimulus words with multiple meanings, forexample, homographs (words that have dif-ferent meanings but the same written form).Specifically, synonym-comprehension latencyhas been shown to be greater for two synony-mous homographs than for two synonymousnonhomographs (Ryder, Note 4). Also, syn-onym-comprehension latency has been foundto be greater for two words in which syno-nymity occurs for the second or less domi-nant sense of at least one word in the pairthan for words synonymous in the first senseof each word (Papperman & Herrmann, Note2; Ryder, Note 4; cf. Grober, Note 5). Thislast result was obtained even when similarity-in-meaning ratings (cf. Rubenstein, 1974)were equated across pairs synonymous in thefirst sense or in a less dominant sense (Pap-perman & Herrmann, Note 2). Homographicrelationships of words are clearly importantto synonym comprehension.

A number of studies have shown that thetime needed to comprehend synonymity isgreater than the time needed to perceivesensory identity between two words. Thelatency to judge sameness of meaning wasfound to be greater than that for judgmentsof sameness in visual characteristics by Cohen(1968), Shulman (1970, 1972), Raser(1972), and Leiber (1977) and in acousticproperties by Cohen (19,68), Leiber (1977),Shulman (1970), and Raser (1972). Syno-


nym comprehension seems to reflect a greaterdepth of processing (Craik & Lockhart, 1973)than do sensory judgments.

Accuracy oj Recognizing Synonymity

The first vocabulary test devoted solely tosynonyms was developed by Lepley (19SS).The test was shown to correlate fairly wellwith first-semester freshman grades, r — .4(Lepley & Zeigler, 1956). Another synonymtest, the Employee Aptitude Survey (Test 1),was found by Hunt, Lunneborg, and Lewis(1975), in a factor analysis of many mea-sures, to load heavily on a "rapid reasoning"factor and moderately on a factor reflectingfacility in accessing "overlearned codes" ornames in (semantic) memory. Thus, synonymtest scores not only reflect a knowledge ofthe general meaning of synonyms but alsoindicate academic potential, fluency in rea-soning, and ease in retrieval of informationfrom semantic memory.

Recognition of synonymity between a testword and a word on a previously presentedlist was compared with recognition of thelist words themselves by Buschke and Laza(1972) . Recognition was more accurate forlist words than for synonyms after only read-ing list words; however, when subjects gen-erated synonyms during list presentation,recognition was equally accurate for syno-nyms and list words. Synonym generationeither primed the synonym set for subse-quent recognition (cf. Collins & Loftus, 1975;Meyer & Schvaneveldt, 1976) or led to acomplete memory record for the features oflist words so synonyms were more readilyrecognized in the test.

Detection oj Specific Meaning in Synonyms

As described above, accuracy in recogni-tion of the general meaning of synonyms ismeasured by several standardized tests. Ac-curacy in recognizing the specific meaning ofsynonyms is also measured by at least onestandardized test, the Synonym Differentia-tion Test (Heinburg, 1959), which requiresone to choose one of three synonyms calledfor in a particular context, for example, "Inthat country the disease has not been com-

pletely (eradicated) (exterminated) (annihi-lated)" (p. 304). The scores on this test wereshown to correlate with ratings of a student'sdiction (word usage) in a brief speech.

Recognition of specific denotative featureswas probably involved in a study by Rosen-berg and Cohen (1966). These investigatorspresented a synonym pair and a stimulusword to a subject whose task was to determinewhich word in the synonym pair was referredto by the stimulus word. Rosenberg andCohen found that the probability of the cor-rect word being chosen depended on whetherthe stimulus word was a "high" or "low"associate of the correct word. Although as-sociates to the word could be strictly arbi-trary, for example, pink to cue lady fromwoman, they could also be denotative in thespecific sense, for example, proper for lady.Of course, an associate could be denotativein the general sense, for example, female, butsuch a word would be useless in cuing the cor-rect word. Rosenberg and Cohen's paradigmmight prove useful in determining the effec-tiveness of different kinds of meaning (gen-eral, specific, connotative, and sociolinguistic)in choosing the appropriate synonym.

Generation oj Synonyms

If asked to do so, people can provide asynonym for a word and, as with all associa-tions, the responses can be ordered accordingto frequency in a hierarchy (Fijalkow, 1973;Stark, 1972; Riegel, Note 6). The frequencyof a synonym response presumably reflectsits similarity in meaning or overlap in fea-tures with the stimulus word, that is, overlapin specific features. The synonym-productionfrequency of a response to a stimulus tends tocovary directly with the rated familiarity ofthe word (Fijalkow, 1973). Additionally, thenumber of synonyms generated by subjectsappears to depend on the familiarity of aword; Lepley (1950) found that the numberof synonyms generated without time limitcovaried significantly with a subject's esti-mate of a stimulus word's familiarity. Thisresult is consistent with the recent findingthat OSR latency was inversely related tothe printed frequency of the word first pre-sented in a synonym pair (Sabol & DeRosa,1976).

SYNONYMITY 499

Synonym Generation in Association

In free association it has long been ob-served that subjects frequently produce syn-onyms (Woodworth, 1938). Synonym re-sponses are generally more frequent thanantonym responses but less frequent thanother kinds of association (Karwoski & Bert-hold, 1945; Karwoski & Schachter, 1948).However, synonyms were less common thanantonyms in association to prepositions(Clark, 1968) and were rare in general inassociation to compound stimuli (Deese &Hamilton, 1974). The tendency to give syn-onym associations has also been shown to varywith academic subcultures (Murphy, 1917)and national cultures (Moran, 1973). Whensubjects respond to a series of free-associa-tion stimuli, they tend to produce manyresponses of a certain type, for example,mostly synonyms or mostly antonyms (Kar-woski & Berthold, 1945; Moran, 1966).These data have lead to the conclusion thatsubjects employ a strategy or set when as-sociating and that the set to produce synonymsis distinct from the set to produce antonyms(Moran, 1966). However, data from re-stricted-association tasks (e.g., "Produce asynonym") indicate that the basis for gen-erating synonyms is not completely differentfrom the basis for generating antonyms or,also, the generation of exemplars for a cate-gory. For example, when subjects are given avariety of restricted-association tasks, theresponses produced sometimes overlap acrossthe three tasks of generating a synonym, anantonym, or a category exemplar (Perfetti,1967; Riegel & Riegel, 1963). Synonym gen-eration, therefore, appears to involve some ofthe same semantic factors that are relevantto generation of antonyms and category ex-emplars.

Acquisition oj Synonymity

Saltz (1971) proposed that people learnsynonyms either by observing the words inthe same context or by being instructed thatWord x means the same as word y. More-over, he assumed that synonyms learned bycontext have a different internal representa-tion (z-context-;y) from synonyms learnedby instruction (x-y). The only study compar-

ing synonyms learned by context with thoselearned by instruction found no differencesbetween these two kinds of synonyms in ac-curacy of recognizing synonymity (D. M.Johnson & Stratton, 1966). However, sincethis is but one null finding, Saltz's proposalremains a viable hypothesis. We simply knownothing about acquisition of synonymy.

Covert Synonym Responses

Studies investigating covert responding tosynonyms have generally had one of threepurposes: to establish that meaning (viasynonymity) was processed in a certain task,to compare the amount of processing re-quired by synonymity with that required bysensory similarity, or to compare the amountof processing required by synonymity withthat required by other semantic relationships.These investigations have originated fromseveral different research areas: perception,verbal conditioning, verbal learning (acquisi-tion, transfer), and memory (forgetting,cued recall, short- and long-term recognition).It is seen below that across all of the re-search areas, numerous investigationsachieved their goal of showing that meaning,based on synonymity, was processed in acertain task.

It should be pointed out, however, that sev-eral studies reviewed below possess a meth-odological weakness that raises difficulties forinterpretation. These studies employed a popu-lar design in which the effects of synonymsand other semantic classes (e.g., antonyms,hyponyms) have been compared in a particu-lar task. Unfortunately, almost all of thesestudies failed to match the stimuli representingeach class on some measure of semantic simi-larity. Since semantic similarity has beenshown to vary across different semantic classes(Flavell & Flavell, 1959; Rubenstein & Good-enough, 1965), it is difficult to ascertain inthese studies whether the results are due todifferences in the class relationships or simplydue to differences in semantic similarity ofstimuli. Although many of these studies oc-curred before it was known that semantic simi-larity was a relevant variable and cannot befaulted for failing to control such similarity,the fact remains that the results of any study


without such control are ambiguous. All ofthe studies below that compared semanticclasses can be presumed to suffer from thisdefect except when the use of an acceptablecontrol is indicated.

Perception

Perceptual research indicates that mere pre-sentation of a word elicits CSRs. The visual-duration threshold for synonyms of wordspresented earlier in a series of threshold de-terminations was shown by Gofer and Shepp(1957) to be lower than the threshold for un-related control words. Synonyms must havebeen implicitly activated or primed by thepresentation of the earlier words.

Synonyms have also been shown to affectperceptual processes in an attention task.When subjects repeat (shadow) a messagepresented in one ear, presentation in theother ear (the unattended channel) of syn-onyms of message words impedes the latencyof shadowing relative to other semantic rela-tionships (Lewis, 1970). The simultaneouselicitation of a synonym in the unattendedchannel apparently makes it difficult for thesubject to decide which word he perceivedin the shadowed channels. Alternatively,when two different words are presented,one to each ear, without the requirement ofshadowing, recognition of the words wasfound to be as accurate for synonyms as thatfor two categorically related words and moreaccurate than recognition of two antonyms(Kadesh, Riese, & Anisfeld, 1976).

Semantic Generalization

Findings in this research area lead to thesame conclusion implied by perceptual stud-ies, that is, that a word's presentation ac-tivates the synonyms of the word. In a seminalexperiment, Razran (1939) showed that afterwords were presented to a subject during eat-ing, subsequent presentation of synonyms ofthese words produced more salivation than didhomophones of these words. Since Razran'sstudy, many investigations have observed se-mantic generalization across a wide range ofstimuli and responses (for reviews of thiswork, see Cofer & Foley, 1942; Creelman,

1966; Feather, 1965). Peastrel, Wishner, andKaplan (1968), though, showed that general-ization was greatest to synonyms when sub-jects were set to process meaning during con-ditioning and was greatest to homophoneswhen subjects were set to process acousticproperties of the conditioned stimulus, and noclear difference between synonyms and homo-phones emerged when the set was ambiguous.Finally, two studies have found generalizationto antonyms, as well as to synonyms, butthere were no significant differences in the ef-fects of these two kinds of meaning (Korn,1966; Lerner, 1968).

Feather (1965) argued that generalizationmay not be occurring in these studies. He pro-posed that a word may covertly elicit its syn-onym during conditioning, and thus the syn-onym becomes conditioned, too. At the testfor generalization, the observation of a condi-tioned response to a synonym does not provegeneralization, for the response may be di-rectly conditioned rather than generalized.Feather's contention is consistent with per-ceptual research on visual-duration thresholds,mentioned above, which indicated that syn-onyms are implicitly activated when a word isperceived (Cofer & Shepp, 1957).

Association

Association to a word in the presence of itssynonym produces somewhat surprising ef-fects, that is, until the constructs of generaland specific meaning are taken into account.Esposito and Pelton (1969) found that as-sociates to a word in the presence of theword's synonym were less common than as-sociates to the word in the presence of an un-related word. Similarly, Cofer and Ford(1957) observed free-association latency tobe longer when a stimulus word was presentedwith its synonym than when the word waspresented with an unrelated word. In bothstudies the presence of a synonym altered theassociative response. One explanation of thiseffect is that the presence of a synonym in-duces a subject to avoid producing a responseto the meaning held in common by the twowords (cf. Cofer & Ford, 1957), that is, gen-eral meaning. Thus, when a synonym is pres-

SYNONYMITY 501

ent, a subject may respond just to specificfeatures of the stimulus word, whereas in thecontext of an unrelated word the subject mayrespond to both general and specific featuresof the stimulus word. Associative responsesmade only to specific features would be ex-pected to be more diverse than responses madeto all of the features of a word because thelimited number of specific features places fewconstraints on words that can be generatedthat are related to these features. The latencyof associative responses to specific featuresshould be longer than responses to a word'sentire feature set because, in the former case,time must be spent on identifying the specificfeatures before association can commence.

Associations to the synonym of a previ-ously satiated word, one that had lost mean-ing by being repeatedly pronounced, werefound by Fillenbaum (1963) to be less diversethan associations to the satiated word itselfbut more diverse than associations to an un-related word. Therefore, a word may becomesatiated indirectly by being synonymous withanother word that has repeatedly been pro-cessed. Since most words are only partiallysynonymous, however, a word satiated by syn-onymity would be less satiated than the di-rectly processed word. Thus, with fewer fea-tures satiated, associates to the synonymwould be less diverse than those to the di-rectly processed word. Alternatively, sincesome of the synonym's features have beensatiated, associates to the synonym would bemore diverse than to a non-satiated unrelatedword (cf. Esposito & Pelton, 1969; Gumenik& Spencer, 1965).

Verbal Learning—Acquisition

Synonym relationships can either facilitateor inhibit recall, depending on the learningparadigm. Generally synonymity facilitates ac-quisition unless different synonymous formsare likely either to elicit or to become com-peting responses (cf. Abramczyk, Thompson,Jordan & Weeks, 1976; Bousfield, Abram-czyk, & Stein, 1971). The pattern of resultsseems consistent with hypothesized generaland specific features. Underwood (19S3) andEkstrand and Underwood (1963) found re-call for a list composed of synonyms to be

superior to that for a list of unrelated words.A synonym list might be acquired quickly be-cause, once synonymity is detected, generalfeatures are acquired for all items, and theremaining time can be spent acquiring thespecific features identifying each list word.Unrelated words, in contrast, require the stor-age of different general features, as well asspecific features for each word, and thus takelonger to learn (cf. Richardson, 1960).

In paired-associate learning, if responseterms are synonyms of each other, learning ofresponses alone is facilitated (Higa, 1962;Underwood, Runquist, & Schulz, 1959). Syn-onymity among stimulus words (Runquist,1968; Underwood, 1953) or among responses(Higa, 1962; Saltz, 1961; Underwood et al.,1959) impairs acquisition of the correct re-sponse to a particular stimulus. Higa (1962)found that this impairment in learning wasgreater for response synonymity than for re-sponse similarity based on association, ant-onymy, connotation, and categories, althoughthe difference was only significant for connota-tion and categories. In contrast with theselong-term memory studies, synonym com-monality among stimuli and among responseshas had no effect or a very small debilitatingeffect on learning and recall in most short-term memory experiments (Baddeley, 1966,1970). Consistent with this, synonym com-monality in a list impeded probed recall ofthe early portion of a list, whereas homonymcommonality impeded recall from late in thelist (Kintsch & Buschke, 1969).

Effects of stimulus or response synonymitycan be heightened by instructions to use im-agery. In a paired-associate learning task,Bower (1972) presented pairs whose stimuli(or responses) were either synonymous or notsynonymous with other stimuli (or responses).Subjects using imagery did not acquire thesynonym pairs as well as nonsynonym pairs,whereas subjects who used auditory rehearsalslearned the synonym and nonsynonym pairsequally well. Consistent with the referencedefinition of synonymity, synonyms appar-ently elicited similar images, and subjects oc-casionally confused images with the corre-sponding stimulus or response term.

Although intralist synonymity acceleratesthe learning of responses alone, synonymity


does not seem to provide a good basis for or-ganization in free-recall learning (Cofer,1965). For example, category words are clus-tered more than are synonyms. The reason forthe weak clustering of synonyms is not clear,but it may be due to the amount of denotativefeatures necessary to discover synonymity orcategory membership prior to clustering. Asubject must process many features of aword's meaning to discover that it is synony-mous with another word, whereas he or shemust process fewer features to discover agree-ment in category meaning.

Only one study has examined the effects ofsynonymity between stimulus and response onacquisition. Underwood (1974) presented,during acquisition and at a subsequent recog-nition test, word pairs that were synonyms,antonyms, hyponyms, homonyms, and associ-ates. Relative to a control condition, recogni-tion performance improved across antonyms,homonyms, hyponyms, synonyms, and associ-ates.

Verbal Learning—Transfer

Research has consistently shown that a sec-ond list composed of synonyms of words froman earlier list is acquired faster than a con-trol list of unrelated words. Foley and Cofer(1943) found positive transfer in recall oflist items that were synonymous or homony-mous with items from previously studied lists.Similarly, synonymity across lists in paired-associate responses resulted in positive trans-fer for Barnes and Underwood (1959), Post-man and Stark (1969), and Weiss-Shed(1973). Positive transfer for synonyms wasmarginally supported in research on mediatedtransfer (Cofer & Yarczower, 1957) andprobability learning (Hanson, Schipper, &Brislin, 1969). Moreover, the amount of posi-tive transfer has been shown to be directlyrelated to degree of synonymity (Ellis, 1965;Morgan & Underwood, 1950; Underwood,1951). These results are consistent with theconclusion that after first-list acquisition, thegeneral meaning of first-list words is trans-ferred to the second list, reducing the burdenof second-list acquisition to learning only thespecific features of the new synonyms. Accord-ing to this interpretation, as the degree of syn-

onymity increases between lists, fewer newfeatures must be learned, leading transfer tobe quicker.

Transfer for synonyms was found to be in-ferior to that for associated words in threestudies (Bastian, 1961; Sassenrath & Yongue,1967, 1973). On the other hand, synonymsyielded more positive transfer than antonymsin two experiments but had the reverse effectin another experiment (Kanungo, 1967;Wickens & Cermak, 1967). Connotative simi-larity based on semantic-differential scoresproduced positive transfer but only when thewords were denotatively similar (Dicken,1957).

Memory—Interference and Forgetting

For nearly three quarters of a century,memory researchers have examined the effectsof prior learning on the recall of material ac-quired later, proactive interference (PI), andthe reverse relationship, the effects of laterlearning on the recall of material acquiredearlier, retroactive interference (RI). PI hasbeen shown to be diminished by synonymitybetween material learned earlier and thatlearned later. Synonyms produced less PI thandid unrelated words in studies by Morgan andUnderwood (1951), Young (1955), and Dal-lett (1962). Synonymity may attenuate PIbecause synonymity produces positive trans-fer that offsets the effects of interference.

In contrast with PI findings, RI resultsconflict greatly. This is particularly disturb-ing, since some RI investigators seemed un-aware that their results contradicted some ofthe earlier findings. In both serial learning andpaired-associate learning, synonymity be-tween lists led to poorer recall of original-listwords than of unrelated control words (i.e.,RI) in seven studies (Baddeley & Dale, 1966;Deese & Marder, 1957; L. M. Johnson, 1933;McGeogh & McDonald, 1931; McGeogh &McGeogh, 1936, 1937; Postman & Stark,1969). In contrast, synonymity had the op-posite effect in four studies, that is, synonym-ity facilitated original-word recall (Barnes &Underwood, 1959; Bastian, 1961; Kanungo,1967; Weiss-Shed, 1973). One study foundneither RI nor facilitation with borderlinesynonyms (Osgood, 1946; cf. Young, 1955),

SYNONYMITY 503

and short-term memory studies have also beenunable to produce RI with synonyms (Bad-deley & Dale, 1966; Dale, 1967). In sum, theresults on synonymity and RI are in disarray.Systematic investigation of the variables un-controlled across past experiments is needed tobring order to the present chaos.

Memory—Cued Recall

Synonyms have been found to be effectivecues in free recall (Light, 1972; D. L. Nelson& Brooks, 1974; D. L. Nelson, Wheeler,Borden, & Brooks, 1974). The degree of ef-fectiveness increases with the similarity be-tween synonyms (D. L. Nelson & Brooks,1974; D. L. Nelson et al., 1974). When syn-onym cues were compared with cues acousti-cally similar to memorized words (homonymsfor Light, rhyming words for Nelson and hiscolleagues), synonyms generally resulted inless recall than did acoustic cues. One reasonfor the superior recall for acoustic cues, sug-gested by Light (1972), is that the number ofwords similar to an acoustic cue are fewerthan those similar to synonym cues. Thus,when a cue is presented, a subject must searcha larger set of words for a synonym cue thanfor an acoustic cue in order to find the cor-rect list item.

Memory—Short-Term Recognition

After a word has been briefly presented, asynonym of the word is more often falselyidentified as having been presented previouslythan is an unrelated word (Anisfeld & Knapp,1968; Bruder & Silverman, 1972; Elias &Perfetti, 1973). The increase in false recogni-tions in response to synonyms suggests eitherthat an insufficient number of features wereinitially stored at presentation or that be-tween presentation and test specific featureswere lost in memory, leading the subject toconclude erroneously that a synonymous dis-tractor had been presented earlier.

When synonyms have been compared withother semantic classes for distractor effective-ness, synonyms have generally been the mostseductive distractors. The proportion of falserecognitions for synonyms was found to begreater than that for antonyms in one case

(Grossman & Eagle, 1970) but was equivalentto that for antonyms in another (Fillenbaum,1969). Synonyms produced more recognitionerrors than did nonsynonyms associativelymatched with synonyms in two cases (Fillen-baum, 1969; Grossman & Eagle, 1970) butthe same proportion of errors in one case(Kausler & Settle, 1973; cf. Kurz, 1964). Ina verbal-discrimination experiment that useda variant of the recognition paradigm, syn-onyms were no more effective as distractorsthan were antonyms and associates (Lovelace&Schulz, 1971).

Synonyms have also been compared withhomonyms for effectiveness in yielding falserecognitions. Synonyms were more effective asdistractors than were homonyms in two recog-nition experiments and two verbal-discrimina-tion experiments (Bruder & Silverman, 1972),but synonyms and homonyms were equally ef-fective in two recognition and two discrimina-tion experiments (Bruder and Silverman,1972; Buschke & Lenon, 1969). Thus, syn-onyms are at least as strong or stronger thanhomonyms as lures for false-recognition re-sponses.

Memory—Long-Term Recognition

Like recognition based on a brief presenta-tion, long-term recognition is also affected bysynonymity between distractors and the mem-orized material, although in a somewhat differ-ent fashion. In several studies, accuracy oflong-term recognition was essentially unaf-fected by synonym distractors at an immedi-ate test (Handler, 1970, 1972; Mandler,Pearlstone, & Koopmans, 1969) but was af-fected at a delayed test (Mandler, 1970,1972; Edick, Note 7). In contrast, latency ofcorrect recognition at an immediate test hasbeen found to be longer in response to syn-onym distractors than to unrelated distractors(Juola, Fischler, Wood, & Atkinson, 1971;Kennedy, 1975), a difference that was in-creased at a delayed test (Edick, Note 7).

The pattern of findings on synonym effectsin short- and long-term recognition is quiteconsistent in terms of general and specificfeatures. When acquisition is restricted to alow level, only a small proportion of a word'sfeatures may be stored. Consequently, in rec-


ognition, when a synonym is presented, morefeatures match with list items than is the casefor unrelated words, and the synonym isfalsely recognized. When acquisition is at ahigh level, many features, general and specific,are stored, allowing the subject to discriminatesynonyms from memorized words and notmake errors in an immediate test. Discrimina-tion consumes time, however, and so rejectionof a synonym takes longer than rejection of anunrelated word. By the time of a delayed test,specific features have been lost, leading tomore errors for synonyms; the discriminationproblem is also aggravated by the loss of fea-tures, leading to even longer latencies for syn-onym rejection.

Generalizations Drawn Across Research Areas

Conceptions of Synonymity

Undoubtedly, the semantic conceptions ofsynonymity developed by philosophers andlinguists are evidenced in psychological data.Sameness of meaning (the first conception ofsynonymity) has affected performance in avariety of tasks involving OSRs or CSRs. Noresearch has attempted to show if absolutesynonyms exist, but degree of partial syn-onymity (the second conception) has alsobeen shown to affect OSRs and CSRs and tocovary with the degree of interchangeability(the third conception). This observed cor-relation between degree of synonymity andinterchangeability is a relationship that mostsemanticists have not considered. No researchhas directly tested the referential basis ofsynonymity (the fourth conception). Never-theless, some support for the referential basisof synonymity is found in Flavell's (1961)positive correlation between ratings of co-occurrence probability and similarity in mean-ing, as well as in Bower's (1972) results onimagery instructions and synonymity in trans-fer. The hierarchical approach to synonymity(the fifth conception) was supported in ananalysis by Rubenstein and Goodenough(cited in Rubenstein, 1974) based on Roget'stree of knowledge. However, the theoreticalrelationship of the hierarchy to synonymity,as mentioned earlier, has yet to be truly de-veloped.

Although all of the conceptions of synonym-ity have received support, none seems tohave captured both the necessary and suffi-cient conditions of synonymity. The psycho-logical data reviewed above suggest thatrather than being describable by a logicaldefinition, synonymity may be a matter ofdenotative, connotative, and sociolinguisticsimilarity exceeding a certain criterion. Con-ventional wisdom treats synonyms and non-synonyms as mutually exclusive classes, butin actuality, there are word pairs that a sub-ject finds difficult to classify in either one orthe other semantic class. Thus, synonymity isa condition based on an underlying continuumthat merges with heteronymy, and the bound-ary between synonymity and heteronymy isnot clearly demarcated.

Components of Meaning and Synonymity

General and specific denotative meaning.The effects of general features of synonyms,that is, the meaning shared by all words in asynonym set, have of course been observed inall of the areas reviewed. The existence ofspecific features is consistent with findings inmany areas. First, synonymity has been shownto vary in degree by ratings of similarity inmeaning. Rating differences presumably re-flect the amount of agreement in specificfeatures such as those depicted in Table 1.Second, the reduction in commonality of as-sociates when a stimulus is accompanied by itssynonym in free association suggests that re-sponding in this task is not to general featuresbut to specific features. Third, synonym-com-prehension tests have been developed that in-dicate knowledge of both specific meaning andgeneral meaning. Fourth, Rosenberg andCohen's (1966) study, in which a probe wordelicited a choice between synonyms, is con-sistent with an internal representation of spe-cific features. Fifth, synonymity among stimulior among responses of a paired-associate listinhibits rate of acquisition, presumably be-cause careful discrimination must be made onspecific features in order to associate the cor-rect response to the stimulus. Sixth, the in-crease in recognition accuracy for synonymdistractors with degree of learning can be ex-

SYNONYMITY 505

plained by the acquisition of specific featureswith practice.

Connotative and sociolinguistic meaning.Not much work has been done on this topic,but the evidence reviewed above suggests thatdenotative meaning is not the only kind ofmeaning involved in OSRs and CSRs. Thisconclusion is important within the history ofsynonymy, since almost all logical, philosophi-cal, and semantic positions base synonymityon denotation only. This conclusion also has awider implication for psychosemantic researchin general. The implication is that many se-mantic tasks may involve processing featuresother than those essential to the task. For ex-ample, might connotative similarity affect thedecision to classify a word as a member ornonmember of a category? Irrelevant attri-butes have been shown to affect processing inconcept-formation tasks, so it may not be sur-prising if irrelevant semantic attributes affectprocessing of relevant semantic features.

lationships do, this conclusion rests on atenuous foundation. Virtually all researchcomparing synonyms with other semanticclasses has lacked rigorous controls. The mostserious methodological weakness has been thefailure to equate different semantic classes onsimilarity in meaning. As is explained above,when synonyms have been found to havea greater effect than other semantic relation-ships, it has generally been unclear whetherthis result was due to synonymity being ap-prehended more easily than the other rela-tionships or because the synonyms used wereinadvertently more similar in overall meaningthan were the other stimuli. A second reasonfor exercising caution in accepting previousfindings is that it is unlikely that the effectswere large enough to survive the current rigorof psychosemantic statistical analysis (Clark,1973). More and better work is needed onpsychological comparisons between the dif-ferent semantic relationships and synonymity.

Synonymity and Other Semantic Relationships Directions for Future Research

Logically, synonymity should be the closestrelationship of meaning; i.e., two synonymsmight be expected generally to overlap more inmeaning than would a word pair represent-ing another semantic relationship. This shouldbe true at least for synonyms that are ab-solute or for highly partial synonyms. The re-search above is somewhat mixed on this point.FlavelPs work on ratings generally showedsynonyms to be the most similar in meaningout of various kinds of associations andantonyms. However, semantic-generalizationstudies have failed to find differences betweensynonyms and antonyms. Higa (1962) foundthat synonymity within responses on a paired-associate list interfered with learning morethan did any other kind of relationship.Transfer findings are conflicting, since syn-onyms have led to more positive transfer thanantonyms in two studies but less transfer inone study using unmixed lists. Recognition isgenerally less disturbed by antonyms than bysynonyms, but synonyms are in some cases nostronger as distractors than are words matchedfor associative overlap. Although it appearsthat synonymity affects performance on psy-chological tasks more than other semantic re-

The most obvious goal for new investiga-tions is to discover what kinds of meaning af-fect the judgment of synonymity. In the in-troduction to this article, it is noted that mostsemanticists and philosophers define synonym-ity in terms of denotative features. Althoughexperiments on similarity-in-meaning judg-ments and on transfer of learning indicatethat connotative meaning is involved in syn-onymity, no one has shown that comprehen-sion of synonymity, specifically, is affected byconnotative meaning. Thus, research is neededon the role of connotative meaning in syn-onym comprehension.

In addition to denotation and connotation,many synonym sets may also have wordsmarked for sociolinguistic factors. Whatmight these factors be? Collinson (1939) andUllmann (1962) cited examples of synonymsthat differ in formality (deceased-dead) orpoliteness (pass away - die - kick the bucket).Pittenger and Smith (1969), Leech (1974),and Farb (1973) also pointed out that socialfactors may dictate the choice of a synonym.Whether or not the sociolinguistic factor offormality affects the decision of synonymity isan open question, but it is almost certain that


formality does affect choice of a synonym inspeech production.

Another sociolinguistic factor involved withsynonym use, which overlaps with connota-tion, might be called impressibility. Somewords will be uttered or written to impress thereceiver of the message. Thus steed is cal-culated to impress (Paivio, 1968) or to inspirein place of its synonym horse (Farb, 1973).Moral sensibilities are intended to be arousedwhen one uses thrifty instead of economical(Collinson, 1939). Indeed, as Vance Pack-ard's (1959) The Status Seekers demon-strated, the advertising industry thrives onusing certain synonyms rather than othersthat are more neutral in order to impress andinspire buying. After terms of address (cf.Brown, 1962), synonym selection may be themost prominent case of social factors influenc-ing semantic choices in production of lan-guage. Nevertheless, the influence of sociolin-guistic meaning on synonym comprehensionhas not been observed in the laboratory.Thus, the importance of sociolinguistic mean-ing to synonym comprehension, postulatedhere, should be tested experimentally.

Another direction for new research is toreplicate, with proper controls for similarityin denotative, connotative, and sociolinguisticmeaning, the many studies comparing syn-onymity with other semantic relationships.Replication is needed because, as discussedabove, almost all of these studies did not at-tempt to control similarity in kinds of mean-ing across semantic relationships. Future workcomparing synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms,and associations of various kinds should useproper controls that will permit sound con-clusions.

The final topic that demands attention isthe acquisition of synonymity for a pair ofwords. We know absolutely nothing about theconditions affecting the acquisition and reten-tion of synonymity.

Synonymity and Individuality

In coming to grips with the problem of syn-onymity, it is necessary to acknowledge therole of individual differences. Naess (1953)pointed out that the sameness in meaning canbe identified within the individual (intraindi-

vidual synonymity) and between individuals(interindividual synonymity). Some effects ofsynonymity may not be detected in an in-terindividual paradigm (i.e., testing all sub-jects with the same materials and analyzingacross subjects) that may be confirmed withan intraindividual paradigm (i.e., testing andanalyzing each subject individually). For ex-ample, if exact synonymity is ever to be dem-onstrated, it will have to be with an intrain-dividual paradigm.

Why Are There Synonyms?

In discussing synonymity with colleaguesand students, the point is often made thatsynonyms are redundant. Then, many peoplego on to deduce that in actuality there can beno real synonyms, since redundancy is inef-ficient (and humans are perfect), or that ifthere are synonyms, they represent a flaw inthe human information-processing mechanism,namely, having redundancy where none is nec-essary. (For arguments as to why synonymicredundancy enhances a language's efficiencysee Jones, 1964, chap. 4). Regardless of thelogical merits or demerits of synonymity, thereare at least four reasons for synonymity froma psychological standpoint.

Within a stylistic framework (Ogden &Richards, 1923; Stern, 1931; Ullmann, 1962)synonyms are recommended to make prose in-teresting. The many synonym dictionaries ex-ist to permit writers a better means of expres-sion. Synonyms are stylistically useful in partbecause they allow the writer to avoid exces-sive repetition of a particular word. Repetitionis to be avoided not for logical reasons but ap-parently for psychological reasons. But whatpsychological factors might account for thereader's aversion to repetition and the au-thor's use of synonyms? First, repetition ofthe same response has long been known to in-duce fatigue. Lepley (1950), extending Hull'sconcept of reactive inhibition, proposed thatsynonyms exist as a means of changing a re-sponse to avoid repetition and repetition's con-sequence of reactive inhibition, namely, fa-tigue. Second, repetition of a verbal responseis known to lead to a loss in subjective ap-prehension of meaning (Lambert & Jakobo-

SYNONYMITY 507

vits, 1960). Switching to a synonym of asatiated word may attenuate such semanticsatiation (cf. Fillenbaum, 1963) and allowthe speaker to stay in touch with the meaningof a key concept or term. Third, partial syn-onyms are stylistically useful because theyfacilitate communication. In choosing the syn-onym or synonyms called for in a certain sit-uation, a writer or speaker may attend tospecific features and delineate what informa-tion is to be imparted even better than if aparticular word were used repeatedly. Finally,when one word in a synonym set is presented,all other words in the set become primed(Cofer & Shepp, 1957). Priming prepares thelistener or reader to receive other words fromthe set and process these words faster. Thus,contrary to the position that synonyms im-pair language processing (Skinner, 1957), syn-onymity serves at least four adaptive psycho-semantic functions.

Reference Notes

1. Melton, A. W., & Safier, D. E. Meaningful simi-larity of pairs of two-syllable adjectives. In Ma-terials for use in experimental studies of the learn-ing and retention of verbal habits. Unpublishedmanuscript, University of Missouri, 1936.

2. Papperman, T. J., & Herrmann, D. J. Synonymcomprehension for word pairs composed of homo-graphs and nonhomographs. Unpublished manu-script, Hamilton College, 1976.

3. Giuliano, V. E. The interpretation of wo,rd as-sociations. In M. E. Stevens, V. E. Giuliano, & L.B. Hedprin (Eds.), Statistical association methodsfor mechanized documentation (Miscellaneous Pub-lication 269). Washington, D.C.: National Bureauof Standards, 1965.

4. Ryder, J. M. Context-contingent lexical access.Paper presented at the meeting of the EasternPsychological Association, Boston, April 1977.

5. Grober, E. H. Verifying the meanings of polyse-mous words. Paper presented at the meeting of theEastern Psychological Association, New York,April 1976.

6. Riegel, K. F. The Michigan restricted associationnorms (Report 3; United States Public HealthService Grant MH 07619). Ann Arbor: Universityof Michigan, Department of Psychology, 1965.

7. Edi'ck, P. R. The effects of semantic similarity be-tween targets and distractors and a long delay onrecognition. Paper presented at the meeting of theEastern Psychological Association, New York,April 1976.

References

Abraham, S., & Kiefer, F. A theory of structural se-mantics. The Hague, The Netherlands: Mouton,1966.

Abramczyk, R. R., Thompson, W. D., Jordan, D. E.,& weeks, R. A. Interaction effects of synonymity,intralist synonym cohesiveness, and test length inmultitrial free recall. Psychological Reports, 1976,38, 507-521.

Adler, M. J., & Gorman, W. (Eds.). The great ideas:A syntopicon of great books of the western world.Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952.

Anisfeld, M., & Knapp, M. Association, synonymity,and directionality in false recognition. Journal ofExperimental Psychology, 1968, 77, 171-179.

Aristotle. The works of Aristotle (Vol. 2; W. D.Ross, Ed.). Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica,1952.

Baddeley, A. D. Short-term memory for word se-quences as a function of acoustic, semantic, andformal similarity. Journal of Experimental Psy-chology, 1966,18, 362-365.

Baddeley, A. D. Effects of acoustic and semanticsimilarity in short-term paired associate learning.British Journal of Psychology, 1970, 61, 335-343.

Baddeley, A. D., & Dale, H. C. A. The effect ofsemantic similarity on retroactive interference inlong and short-term memory. Journal of VerbalLearning and Verbal Behavior, 1966, S, 417-420.

Barnes, J. M., & Underwood, B. J. "Fate" of flrst-list associations in transfer theory. Journal of Ex-perimental Psychology, 1959, 58, 97-105.

Bastian, J. Associative factors in verbal transfer.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1961, 62,70-79.

Benedetti, D. T. The stratification of wo,rds in cogni-tive organization. Journal of General Psychology,1958, 58, 249-258.

Bierwisch, M. Semantics. In J. Lyons (Ed.), Newhorizons in linguistics. Harmonidsworth, England:Pelican Books, 1970.

Bloomfleld, L. Language. New York: Holt, 1933.Bousfield, W. A., Abramczyk, R. R., & Stein, D. K.

The effects of synonymity on item recall and se-quential ordering in multitrial free recall. Psy-chonomic Science, 1971, 23, 173-175.

Bower, G. H. Mental imagery and associative learn-ing. In L. W. Gregg (Ed.), Cognition in learningand memory. New York: Wiley, 1972.

Brewer, W. F. Memory for ideas: Synonym sub-stitution. Memory &• Cognition, 1975, 3, 453-464.

Brown, R. W. The language of social relationships.Proceedings of the 16th International Congress ofPsychology. Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1962.

Bruder, G., & Silverman, W. Effects of semantic andphonetic similarity on verbal recognition and dis-crimination. Journal of Experimental Psychology,1972, 94, 314-320.

Buschke, H., & Laza, G. Wo.rd feature encoding:Synonym and antonym discrimination after gen-erating synonyms and antonyms. Psychonomic Sci-ence, 1972,29,241-243.


Buschke, H., & Lenon, R. Encoding homophones andsynonyms for verbal discrimination and recogni-tion. Psychonomic Science, 1969,14, 269-270.

Cairns, H. S., & Cairns, C. F. Psyche/linguistics: Acognitive view of language. New York: Holt,Rinehart & Winston, 1976.

Cherry, C. On human communication. Cambridge,Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 19S7.

Clark, H. H. On the use and meaning of preposi-tions. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Be-havior, 1968, 7, 421-431.

Clark, H. H. The language as a fixed effect fallacy:A critique of language statistics in psychologicalresearch. Journal of Verbal Learning and VerbalBehavior, 1973,12, 33S-3S9.

Clark, H. H., & Clark, E. V. Psychology and lan-guage: An introduction to psycholinguistics. NewYork: Harcou-rt Brace Jovanovich, 1977.

Cofer, C. N. Associative commonality and rated simi-larity of certain wowis from Haagen's list. Psy-chological Reports, 1957, 3, 603-606.

Cofer, C. N. Organizational characteristics of freerecall. American Psychologist, 1965, 20, 261-272.

Cofer, C. N., & Foley, J. P., Jr. Mediated generaliza-tion and the interpretation of verbal behavior: I.Prolegomena. Psychological Review, 1942, 49, 513-540.

Cofer, C. N., & Ford, T. J. Verbal context and freeassociation time. American Journal of Psychology,1957, 70, 606-610.

Cofer, C. N., & Shepp, B. E. Verbal context and per-ceptual recognition time. Perceptual and MotorSkills, 1957,7,215-218.

Cofer, C. N., & Yarczower, M. Further study of im-plicit verbal chaining in paired-associate learning.Psychological Reports, 1957, 3, 453-456.

Cohen, G. A comparison of semantic, acoustic, andvisual criteria for matching of word .pairs. Per-ception & Psychophysics, 1968, 4, 203-204.

Collins, A. M., & Loftus, E. F. A spreading-activationtheory of semantic processing. Psychological Re-view, 1975, 82, 407-428.

Collinson, W. E. Comparative synomics: Some prin-ciples and illustrations. Transactions in the Philo-logical Society, 1939, ,pp. 54-77.

Craik, F. I. M., & Lockhart, R. S. Levels of process-ing: A framework for memory research. Journal ofVerbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1973, 12,599-607.

Creelman, M. B. The experimental investigation ofmeaning: A review of the literature. New York:Springer, 1966.

Dale, H. C. A. Semantic similarity and the A-B, C-Dparadigm in STM. Psychonomic Science, 1967, 9,79-80.

Dallett, K. M. The role of response similarity inproactive inhibition. Journal of Experimental Psy-chology, 1962, 64, 364-372.

Deese, J. Psycholinguistics. Boston: Allyn & Bacon,1970.

Deese, J., & Hamilton, H. W. Marking and preposi-

tional effects in associations to compounds. Ameri-can Journal of Psychology, 1974, 87, 1-15.

Deese, J. & Marder, V. J. The pattern of errors indelayed recall of serial learning after interpolation.American Journal of Psychology, 1957, 70, 594-599.

Dicken, C. F. Connotative meaning as a determinantof stimulus generalization. Unpublished doctoraldissertation, University of Minnesota, 1957.

Duchacek, 0. Differents types de synonymes. Orbis:Bulletin International de Documentation Lin-quistique, 1964, 8, 35-49.

Ekstrand, B. R., & Underwood, B. J. Paced versusunpaced recall in free learning. Journal of VerbalLearning and Verbal Behavior, 1963, 2, 288-290.

Elias, C. S., & Perfetti, C. A. Encoding task andrecognition memory: The importance of semanticcoding. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1973,oo, 151-156.

Ellis, H. C. The transfer of learning. New York:Macmillan, 1965.

Ervin-Tripp, S. M., & Slobin, D. I. Psycholinguistics.In P. R. Farnsworth, 0. McNemar, & Q. McNemar(Eds.), Annual review of psychology (Vol. 17).Palo Alto, Calif.: Annual Reviews, 1966.

Esposito, N. J., & Pelton, L. H. A test of two mea-sures of semantic satiation. Journal of VerbalLearning and Verbal Behavior, 1969, 8, 637-644.

Farb, P. Word play: What happens when people talk.New York: Bantam Books, 1973.

Feather, B. W. Semantic generalization of classicallyconditioned responses: A review. PsychologicalBulletin, 1965, 63, 425-441.

Fijalkow, J. Recherche lexicale en memoire a longterm: Antonymie, synonymic et frequence. Bul-letin de Psychologie, 1973, 27, 601-605.

Fillenbaum, S. Verbal satiation and changes in mean-ing of related items. Journal of Verbal Learningand Verbal Behavior, 1963, 2, 263-271.

Fillenbaum, S. Semantic satiation 'and decision la-tency. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1964,68, 240-244.

Fillenbaum, S. Words 'as feature complexes: Falserecognition of antonyms and synonyms. Journal ofExperimental Psychology, 1969, 82, 400-402.

Fillenbaum, S. Psycholinguistics. In P. H. Mussen &M. R. Rosenzweig (Eds.), Annual review of psy-chology (Vol. 22). Palo Alto, Calif.: Annual Re-views, 1971.

Flavell, J. H. Meaning and meaning similarity: II.The semantic differential and co-occurrence as pre-dictors of judged similarity in meaning. Journal ofGeneral Psychology, 1961, 64, 321-335.

Flavell, J. H., & Flavell, E. R. One determinant ofjudged semantic and associative connection be-tween words. Journal of Experimental Psychology,1959, 58, 159-165.

Flavell, J. H., & Johnson, B. A. Meaning and mean-ing similarity: III. Latency and number of similar-ities as predictors of judged similarity in meaning.Journal of General Psychology, 1961, 64, 337-348.

Fodor, J. A., Bever, T. G., & Garrett, M. F. The psy-

SYNONYMITY 509

chology of language. New York: McGraw-Hill,1974.

Foley, J. P., Jr., & Cofer, C. N. Mediated generaliza-tion and the interpretation of verbal behavior: II.Experimental study of certain homophone andsynonym gradients. Journal of Experimental Psy-chology, 1943, 32, 168-175.

Fowler, H. W. A dictionary of modern English usage.New York: Oxford University Press, 1965. (Origi-nally published, 1926.)

Glass, A. L., & Holyoak, K. J. Alternative concep-tions of semantic memory. Cognition, 1975, 3,313-339.

Glucksberg, S., & Danks, J. H. Experimental psycho-linguistics: An introduction. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erl-baum, 1975.

Goodenough, W. H. Componential analysis and thestudy of meaning. Language, 1956, 32, 195-216.

Goodman, N. On likeness of meaning. Analysis, 1949,10, 1-7.

Grossman, L., & Eagle, M. Synonymity, antonymity,and association in false recognition responses.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1970, S3,244-248.

Gumenik, W. E., & Spencer, T. Verbal repetition andchanges in meaning of synonyms: Satiation or set?Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior,1965, 4, 286-290.

Haagen, C. H. Synonymity, vividness, familiarity,and association: Value ratings of 400 pairs ofcommon adjectives. Journal of Psychology, 1949,27, 453-463.

Hanson, B. L., Schipper, L. M., & Brislin, R. W.Probability learning with words. Psychonomic Sci-ence, 1969, 16, 300-301.

Harris, R. Synonymy and linguistic analysis. To-ronto, Canada: University of Toronto Press, 1973.

Hartrampf, G. A. Hartrampj's vocabularies. NewYork: Grosset & Dunlap, 1937.

Heinburg, P. An experimental investigation of mea-suring diction. Journal of Educational Research,1959, 52, 303-306.

Higa, M. An experimental comparison of six basesfor assessing intralist similarity in verbal learning.Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard Uni-versity, 1962.

Hermann, H. Psycholinguistics: An introduction toresearch and theory (H. H. Stern, Trans.). NewYork: Springer, 1971.

Hunt, E., Lunneborg, C., & Lewis, J. What does itmean to be high verbal? Cognitive Psychology,1975, 7, 194-227.

Johnson, D. M., & Stratton, R. P. Evaluation of fivemethods of teaching concepts. Journal of Educa-tional Psychology, 1966, 57, 48-53.

Johnson, L. M. Similarity of meaning as a factor inretroactive inhibition. Journal of General Psychol-ogy, 1933, 9, 377-389.

Johnson-Laird, P. N. Experimental psycholinguistics.In M. P..Rosenzweig & L. W. Porter (Eds.), An-nual review of psychology (Vol. 25). Palo Alto,Calif.: Annual Reviews, 1974.

Juola, J. F., Fischler, I., Wood, C. T., & Atkinson,

R. C. Recognition time for information stored hilong-term memory. Perception & Psychophysics,1971,10, 8-14.

Jones, K. S. Synonymy and semantic classification.Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Cambridge Uni-versity, Cambridge, England, 1964.

Jones, K. S. Experiments in semantic classification.Mechanical Translation and Computational Lin-guistics, 1965,5,97-112.

Kadesh, I., Riese, M., & Anisfeld, M. Dichotic listen-ing in the study of semantic relations. Journal ofVerbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1976, IS,213-225.

Kanungo, R. Meaning mediation in verbal transfer.British Journal of Psychology, 1967, SS, 205-212.

Karwoski, T. F., & Berthold, F., Jr. Psychologicalstudies in semantics: II. Reliability of free associa-tion tests. Journal of Social Psychology, 1945, 22,87-102.

Karwoski, T. F., & Schachter, J. Psychological studiesin semantics: III. Reaction times for similarity anddifference. Journal of Social Psychology, 1948, 28,103-120.

Katz, J. J. Semantic theory. New York: Harper &Row, 1972.

Katz, J. J., & Fodor, J. A. The structure of a semantictheory. Language, 1963, 39, 170-210.

Kausler, D. H., & Settle, A. V. Associative relatednessvs. synonymity in the false-recognition effect. Bul-letin of the Psychonomic Society, 1973, 2, 129-131.

Kennedy, A. Contextual effects in reading and recog-nition. In A. Kennedy & A. Wilkes '(Eds.), Studiesin long-term memory, New York: Wiley, 1975.

Kintsch, W., & Buschke, H. Homophones and syn-onyms in short-term memory. Journal of Experi-mental Psychology, 1969, 80, 403-407.

Korn, S. J. "Relatedness" and semantic generalization(Doctoral dissertation, New York University,1959). Dissertation Abstracts International, 1966,27, 1305B-1306B. (University Microfilms No. 66-970,768).

Kurz, I. Semantic and phonetographic generalizationof a voluntary response. Journal of Verbal Learn-ing and Verbal Behavior, 1964, 3, 261-268.

Lambert, W. E., & Jakobovits, L. L. Verbal satiationand changes in the intensity of meaning. Journalof Experimental Psychology, 1960, 60, 376-383.

Leech, G. Semantics. Middlesex, England: PenguinBooks, 1974.

Leiber, L. P. Visual, acoustic, and semantic process-ing of word pairs, Neuropsychologia, 1977, 15,217-229.

Lepley, W. M. An hypothesis concerning the genera-tion and use of synonyms. Journal of ExperimentalPsychology, 1950, 40, 527-530.

Lepley, W. M. The rational construction and pre-liminary try-out of the Synonym Vocabulary Test.Journal of Psychology, 1955, 39, 215-225.

Lepley, W. M., & Zeigler, M. L. Synonym Vocabu-lary Test: Standardization and validation. Journalof Psychology, 1956, 41, 419-425.

Lerner, R. M. Semantic conditioning and generaliza-tion. Psychological Reports, 1968, 22, 1257-1260.


Lewis, J. L. Semantic processing of unattended mes-sages using dichotic listening. Journal of Experi-mental Psychology, 1970, 85, 225-22%.

Lewis, P. A. W., Baxendale, P. B., & Bennett, J. L.Statistical discrimination of the synonymy/ant-onymy relationship between words. Journal of theAssociation for Computing Machinery, 1967, 14,20-44-.

Light, L. L. Homonyms and synonyms as retrievalcues. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1972,96, 2 55-262.

Linsky, L. Synonymity. In P. Edwards et al. (Eds.),The encyclopedia of philosophy (Vol. 8). NewYork: Macmillan, 1967.

Lounsbury, F. G. The structural analysis of kinshipsemantics. In H. G. Hunt (Ed.), Proceedings ofthe Ninth International Congress of Linguistks,The Hague, The Netherlands: Mouton, 1964.

Lovelace, E., & Schulz, L. S. Intrapair associations inverbal discrimination learning. Psychonomic Sci-ence, 1911,24, 157-158.

Lyons, J. Structural semantics: An analysis of partof the vocabulary of Plato. Oxford, England:Blackwell, 1967.

Lyons, J. Introduction to theoretical linguistics. Lon-don: Cambridge University Press, 1968.

Handler, G. Words, lists, and categories: An experi-mental view of organized memory references. In J.L. Cowan (Ed.), Studies in thought and language.Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1970.

Mandler, G. Organization and .recognition. In E.Tulving & W. Donaldson (Eds.), Organization ofmemory. New York: Academic Press, 1972.

Mandler, G., Pearlstone, Z., & Koopinans, H. S. Ef-fect of organization and semantic similarity on re-call and recognition. Journal of Verbal Learningand Verbal Behavior, 1969, 8, 410-^12.

Mates, B. Synonymity. University of California Pub-lications in Philosophy, 1950, 25, 201-226.

McGeogh, J. A., & McDonald, W. T. Meaningful re-lations and retroactive inhibition. American Jour-nal o.f Psychology, 1931, 43, 579-588.

McGeogh, J. A., & McGeogh, G. O. Studies in retro-active inhibition: VI. The influence of the relativeserial positions of interpolated synonyms. Journalof Experimental Psychology, 1936,19, 1-23.

McGeogh, J. A., & McGeogh, G. O. Studies in retro-active inhibition: X. The influence of similarityof meaning between lists of paired associates. Jour-nal of Experimental Psychology, 1937, 21, 320-329.

Meyer, D. E., & Schvaneveldt, R. W. Meaning, mem-ory structure, and mental processes. In C. N. Cofer(Ed.), The structure of human memory. SanFrancisco: Freeman, 1976.

Mo.ran, L. J. Generality of word association re-sponse sets. Psychological Monographs, 1966, *0(4,Whole No. 612).

Moran, L. J. Comparative growth of Japanese andNorth American cognitive dictionaries. Child De-velopment, 1973, 44, 862-865.

Morgan, R. L., & Underwood, B. J. Proactive in-

hibition as a function of response similarity. Jour-nal of Experimental Psychology, 1950, 40, 592-603.

Murphy, G. An experimental study of literary vs.scientific types. American Journal of Psychology,1917, ,2«, 238-262.

Naess, A. Interpretation and preciseness: A contribu-tion to the theory of communication. Oslo, Nor-way: Jacob Dybwad, 1953.

Naess, A. Synonymity as revealed by intuition. Philo-sophical Review, 1957, 66, 87-93.

Nelson, D. L., & Brooks, D. H. Relative effective-ness of rhymes and synonyms as retrieval cues.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1974, 102,503-507.

Nelson, D. L., Wheeler, J. W., Jr., Borden, R. C., &Brooks, D. H. Levels of processing and cuing:Sensory versus meaning features. Journal of Ex-perimental Psychology, 1974,103, 971-977.

Nelson, K. Concept, word, and sentence: Interrela-tions in acquisition and development. Psychologi-cal Review, 1974, SI, 267-285.

Nida, E. A. Analysis of meaning and dictionary mak-ing. International Journal of American Linguistics,1958, 24, 279-292.

Ogden, C. K., & Richards, I. A. The meaning o.fmeaning. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World,1923.

Ohman, S. Theories of the linguistic field. Word, 1953,o, 123-134.

Olson, D. R. Language and thought: Aspects of acognitive theory of semantics. Psychological Re-view, 1970, 77, 2 57-273.

Osgood, C. E. Meaningful similarity and interferencein learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology,1946, 36, 277-301.

Osgood, C. E. Semantic space revisited. Word, 1959,15, 192-200.

Osgood, C. E., Suci, G. J., & Tannenbaum, P. H. Themeasurement of meaning. Urbana: University ofIllinois Press, 1957.

Packard, V. The status seekers. New York: McKay,1959.

Paivio, A. A factor-analytic study of word attributesand verbal learning. Journal of Verbal Learningand Verbal Behavior, 1968, 7, 41-49.

Partridge, E. The world of words. New York:Scribner's, 1939.

Peastrel, A. L., Wishner, J., & Kaplan, B. E. Set,stress, and efficiency of semantic generalization.Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1968, 77,116-124.

Perfetti, C. A. A study of denotative similarity withrestricted word associations. Journal of VerbalLearning and Verbal Behavior, 1967, 6, 788-795.

Perfetti, C. A. Psychosemantics: Some cognitive as-pects of structural meaning. Psychological Bulletin,1972, 78, 241-259.

Pittenger, R. W., & Smith, H. L., Jr. Fundamentalsof English structure. In N. N. Markel (Ed.), Psy-cholinguistics: An introduction to the study ofspeech and personality. Hoinewood, 111.: DorseyPress, 1969.

SYNONYMITY 511

Postman, L., & Stark, K. Role of response availabil-ity in transfer and interference. Journal of Experi-mental Psychology, 1969, 79, 168-177.

Putnam, H. Synonymity, and the analysis of beliefsentences. Analysis, 1954,14, 114-122.

Quine, W. V. 0. From a logical point of view: 9logico-philosophical essays. Cambridge, Mass.: Har-vard University Press, 1953.

Quine, W. V. 0. Word and object. New York: Wiley,1960.

Raser, G. A. Recalling of semantic and acoustic in-formation in short-term memory. Journal of VerbalLearning and Verbal Behavior, 1972,11, 692-697.

Razran, G. A quantitative study of meaning by aconditioned salivary technique (semantic condition-ing) . Science, 1939, 00, 89-90.

Richardson, J. Association among stimuli and thelearning of verbal concept lists. Journal of Ex-perimental Psychology, I960, 60, 290-298.

Riegel, K. F., & Riegel, R. M. An investigation intodenotative aspects of word meaning. Language andSpeech, 1963, 6, 5-21.

Rips, L. J., Shoben, E. J., & Smith, E. E. Semanticdistance and the verification of semantk relations.Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior,1973,12, 1-20.

Rocklyn, E. H., Hessert, R. B., & Braun, H. W.Calibrated materials fo,r verbal learning with mid-dle and old-aged subjects. American Journal ofPsychology, 1957, 70, 628-630.

Roget, International thesaurus (Rev. by C. O. S.Mawson). New York: Crowell, 1962.

Rollins, C. D. The philosophical denial of samenessof meaning. Analysis, 1950,11, 38-45.

Rosenberg, S., & Cohen, B. D. Referenda! processesof speakers and listeners. Psychological Review,1966,73, 208-231.

Rowan, T. C. Some developments in multidimen-sional scaling applied to semantics. Unpublisheddoctoral dissertation, University of Illinois, 1954.

Rubenstein, H. Some problems of meaning in naturallanguages. In I. de S. Pool & W. Schram (Eds.),Handbook of communication. New York: RandMcNally, 1974.

Rubenstein, H., & Goodenough, J. B. Contextual cor-relates of synonymy. Communications of the As-sociation for Computing Machinery, 1965, *, 627-633.

Rudner, R. A note on the likeness of meaning. Anal-ysis, 1950,10, 115-118.

Runquist, W. N. Functions relating intralist stimulussimilarity to acquisition performance with a va-riety of materials. Journal of Verbal Learning andVerbal Behavior, 1968, 7, 549-553.

Sabol, M. A., & DeRosa, D. V. Semantic encoding ofisolated words. Journal of Experimental Psychol-ogy: Human Learning and Memory, 1976, 2, 58-68.

Saltz, E. Response pretraining: Differentiation oravailability? Journal of Experimental Psychology,1961, 62, 583-587.

Saltz, E. The cognitive bases of human learning.Homewood, 111.: Dorsey Press, 1971.

Sassenrath, J. M., & Yonge, G. D. Meaning and trans-

fer of verbal learning. Journal of Educational Psy-chology, 1967, 58, 365-372.

Sassenrath, J. M., & Yonge, G. D. Context, meaning,and transfer of verbal behavior. Psychological Re-ports, 1973, 32, 1151-1157.

Schaeffer, B., & Wallace R. The comparison of wordmeanings. Journal of Experimental Psychology,1970, 86, 144-152.

SCUT, G. S. Some thoughts on synonymy in lan-guage. Orbis: Bulletin International de Documenta-tion Linquistique, 1973, 22, 177-183.

Searle, J. R. Speech acts: An essay in the philosophyof language. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Uni-versity Press, 1969.

Segalowitz, N., & Lambert, W. E. Semantic gen-eralization in bilinguals. Journal of Verbal Learn-ing and Verbal Behavior, 1969, 8, 559-566.

Shuhnan, H. G. Encoding and retention of semanticand phonemic information in short-term memory.Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior,1970, 9, 499-508.

Shulman, H. G. Semantic confusion errors in short-term memory. Journal of Verbal Learning andVerbal Behavior, 1972,11, 220-227.

Skinner, B. F. Verbal behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1957.

Slobin, D. I. Psycholinguistks. Glenview, 111.: Scott,Foresman, 1971.

Smith, E. E. Theories of semantic memory. In W. K.Estes (Ed.), Handbook of learning and cognitiveprocesses (Vol. 5). Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1977.

Smith, E. E., Shoben, E. J., & Rips, L. J. Structureand process in semantic memory: A featural modelfor semantic decisions. Psychological Review, 1974,SI, 214-241.

Snider, J. G., & Osgood, C. E. Semantic differentialtechnique: A sourcebook. Chicago: Aldine, 1969.

Stark, K. Synonym responses to 100 free associationstimuli. Psychonomic Monograph Supplements,1972, 4, 269-274.

Stebbing, S. A modern elementary logic. New York:University Paperbacks, 1966.

Stern, G. Meaning and change of meaning. Bloom-ing ton: Indiana University Press, 1931.

Thomson, J. F. Some remarks on synonymy. Analy-sis, 1952,12, 73-76.

Trier, J. Das sprachliohe Feld. Neue Jahrbucher furWissenschaft und Jugendbildung, 1934,10, 428-449.

Trubetzkoy, N. S. Grundzuge der Phonologie, Prague,Czechoslovakia: Gottingen, 1939.

Ullmann, S. Semantics: An introduction to the sci-ence of meaning. Oxford, England: Blackwell &Mott, 1962.

Uinemoto, T., Morikawa, Y., & Ibuki, M. Familiarityand similarity scales of Japanese adjectives. KyotoUniversity Research Studies in Education, 1955, 1,85-116.

Underwood, B. J. Associative transfer in verballearning as a function of response similarity anddegree of first-list learning. Journal of ExperimentalPsychology, 1951, 42, 44-53,

Underwood, B. J. Studies of 'distributed .practice:


VIII. Learning and retention of paired adjectivesas a function of intralist similarity. Journal ofExperimental Psychology, 1953, 45, 143-149.

Underwood, B. J. The role of the association in rec-ognition memory. Journal of Experimental Psy-chology, 1974, 102, 917-939. (Monograph)

Underwood, B. J., Runquist, W. N., & Sehulz, R. W.Response learning in paired-associate lists as afunction of intralist similarity. Journal of Experi-mental Psychology, 1959, 55, 70-78.

Webster's new dictionary of synonyms (P. B. Gove,Ed.). Springfield, Mass.: Merriam, 1973.

Webster's third new international dictionary of theEnglish language: Unabridged (P. B. Gove, Ed.).Springfield, Mass.: Merriam, 1961.

Weinreich, U. Travel through semantic space. Word,19S8,14, 346-366.

Weinreich, U. A rejoinder. Word, 19S9, IS, 200-201.Weinreich, U. Lexicographic definition in descrip-

tive semantics. In F. W. Householder & S. Saporta(Eds.), Problems in lexicography. InternationalJournal of American Linguistks, 1962, 28, 25-43.

Weisgerber, L. Von den Kraften der Deutschen

Sprache. Grundziige der Inhaltbezogenen gram-matik. Dusseldorf, West Germany: Schwann, 1962.

Weiss-Shed, E. Synonyms, antonyms and retroactiveinhibition with meaningful material. PsychologicalReports, 1973, 32, 459-465.

White, A. R. Synonymous expressions. PhilosophicalQuarterly, 1958, 8, 193-207.

Wickens, D. D., & Cermack, L. S. Transfer effects ofsynonyms and antonyms in a mixed and unmixedlist design. Journal of Verbal Learning and VerbalBehavior, 1967, 6, 832-839.

Wimer, C. An analysis of semantic stimulus factorsin paired-associate learning. Journal of VerbalLearning and Verbal Behavior, 1963, 1, 397-407.

Woodworth, R. S. Experimental psychology, NewYork: Holt, 1938.

Young, R. K. Retroactive and proactive effects undervarying conditions of response similarity. Journalof Experimental Psychology, 1955, 50, 113-119.

Ziff, P. Semantic analysis. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Uni-versity Press, 1960.

Received March 10, 1977 •

Editorial Consultants for This Issue

Mary D. AlnsworthJohn R. AndersonMark I. AppelbaumDalvd J. ArmorJustin AronfreedHenry B. BlllerR. Darrell BockP. L. BroadhurstAnthony BrykC. Richard ChapmanS. F. CheckoskyRussell M. ChurchNorman CliffJacob CohenLlndon EavesRobert L. EbelDonald W. FlskeJoseph L. FlelssSol L. Garfleld

M. S. GazzanlgaLeo GoldbergerHarrison GoughWilliam T. GreenoughNorman GuttmanKenneth M. HellmanEdwin P. HollanderLloyd KaufmanPeter R. KllleenR. E. LanaEdward E. Lawler IIIC. C. LIRonald LlebmanJohn C. LoehllnGeoffrey R. LoftusEleanor E. MaccobyJohn T. MacnamaraLawrence E. MarksEthel MatinKatherlne Nelson

Chester L. OlsonAllan PalvloLyman W. PorterHoward RachllnMichael RossAryeh RouttenbergWilliam W. RozeboomHerbert RubenstelnIrwln G. SarasonMarvin SlegelmanDan I. SloblnDonald P. SpenceLeonard P. UllmannWilliam VaughanJohn P. WanousW. Dlxon WardCharles E. WertsB. J. WinerBarry E. Wolfe

an old problem for the new psychosemantics synonymity

Documents