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Anchoring and contextual variation in the early stages of incidental word learning during reading

Lexical processing is influenced by a word’s semantic diversity, as estimated by corpus-derived metrics. Although this suggests that contextual variation shapes verbal learning and memory, it is not clear what semantic diversity represents and why this influences lexical processing. Word learning experiments and simulations offer an opportunity to manipulate contextual variation directly and measure the effects on processing. In Experiment 1, adults read novel words in six naturalistic passages spanning one familiar topic (low semantic diversity) or six familiar topics (high semantic diversity). Words experienced in the low-diversity condition showed better learning, an effect replicated by simulating spreading activation in lexical networks differing in semantic diversity. We attributed these findings to “anchoring”, a process of stabilizing novel word representations by securing them onto a familiar topic in long-term memory. Simulation 2 and Experiment 2 tested whether word learning might be better placed to take advantage of diversity if novel words were first anchored before diversity was introduced. Simulations and behavioural data both showed that after an anchoring opportunity, novel words forms were better learned in the high-diversity condition. These findings show that anchoring and contextual variation both influence the early stages of word learning.