ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses the adequacy of a model derived from ACT to the arguably specialised domain of lexical performance. It illustrates the extent to which a skill acquisition model can account for a broad range of lexical phenomena. The model described was derived from J. R. Anderson’s ACT theory and as such involved two important principles: reaction-time is reduced with practice according to the power law of learning; transfer of training is a function of the number of common productions which are executed in processing episodes. The stages are included because they define an underlying structure that can be used to predict cross-modal repetition priming effects in a variety of word recognition and classification tasks. The distinction between the maturation and experiential models involves a number of considerations. The most interesting of these concerns the impact of age-of-acquisition on life-span frequency for words from different word-frequency bands.
