ISSN 1671-3710
CN 11-4766/R
主办:中国科学院心理研究所
出版:科学出版社

Advances in Psychological Science ›› 2025, Vol. 33 ›› Issue (7): 1199-1220.doi: 10.3724/SP.J.1042.2025.1199

• Meta-Analysis • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Cognitive mechanisms underlying the age of acquisition effects: Insights from a three-level meta-analysis

ZHANG Lu,, WANG Ziqian,, ZHANG Qingfang()   

  1. Department of Psychology, Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China
  • Received:2024-10-07 Online:2025-07-15 Published:2025-04-27
  • Contact: ZHANG Qingfang E-mail:qingfang.zhang@ruc.edu.cn

Abstract:

Age of acquisition (AoA) refers to the age at which an individual first understands the meaning of a word. Researches revealed that the processing speed of early acquired words is faster and the accuracy is higher, called the AoA effect. To determine the cognitive mechanism underlying the AoA effect, researchers have proposed The Multiple Loci Account, Representation Theory, and Arbitrary Mapping Hypothesis. In order to systematically investigate the cognitive mechanism of the AoA effect, the present study employed a three-level meta-analysis to quantitatively analyze existing literature on the AoA effect. Through the retrieval of articles published before May 15, 2024, the current meta-analysis identified 130 studies, with 10697 participants and 271 effect sizes. Analysis revealed that the effect size of the AoA effect was Hedge’s g = 0.47 (p < 0.001, 95% CI = [0.41, 0.52]). Additionally, the effect size was moderated by task type and word frequency, mainly depending on the semantic relevance across different tasks. However, no significant moderating effects were observed for the target cognitive process, writing system, or the phonological relevance across different tasks. The results of the current meta-analysis indicated that AoA mainly affects the semantic processing stage, and primarily supports the Representation Theory, with early-acquired words having a richer semantic network, thereby facilitating the word processing process.

Key words: picture naming task, word naming task, lexical decision task, age of acquisition effects, three- level meta-analysis

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