The Role of Syllables in Anagram Solution: A Rasch Analysis

Adams, J.W.; Stone, M.; Vincent, R.D.; Muncer, S.J.

Abstract

Anagrams are frequently used by experimental psychologists interested in how the mental lexicon is organized. Until very recently, research has overlooked the importance of syllable structure in solving anagrams and assumed that solution difficulty was mainly due to frequency factors (e.g., bigram statistics). The present study uses Rasch analysis to demonstrate that the number of syllables is a very important factor influencing anagram solution difficulty for both good and poor problem solvers, with polysyllabic words being harder to solve. Furthermore, it suggests that syllable frequency may have an impact on solution times for polysyllabic words, with more frequent syllables being more difficult to solve. The study illustrates the advantages of Rasch analysis for reliable and unidimensional measurement of item difficulty.

Citation

Adams, J., Stone, M., Vincent, R., & Muncer, S. (2011). The Role of Syllables in Anagram Solution: A Rasch Analysis. The Journal of General Psychology, 138(2), 94-109. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.2010.540592

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Apr 1, 2011
• Deposit Date: Feb 28, 2012
• Journal: Journal of General Psychology
• Print ISSN: 0022-1309
• Electronic ISSN: 1940-0888
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 138
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 94-109
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00221309.2010.540592
• Keywords: Cognition, Individual differences, Problem solving, Rasch analysis.