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Wuggy: A multilingual pseudoword generator

  • Published: August 2010
  • Volume 42, pages 627–633, (2010)
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Wuggy: A multilingual pseudoword generator
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  • Emmanuel Keuleers1 &
  • Marc Brysbaert1 
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  • 564 Citations

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Abstract

Pseudowords play an important role in psycholinguistic experiments, either because they are required for performing tasks, such as lexical decision, or because they are the main focus of interest, such as in nonwordreading and nonce-inflection studies. We present a pseudoword generator that improves on current methods. It allows for the generation of written polysyllabic pseudowords that obey a given language’s phonotactic constraints. Given a word or nonword template, the algorithm can quickly generate pseudowords that match the template in subsyllabic structure and transition frequencies without having to search through a list with all possible candidates. Currently, the program is available for Dutch, English, German, French, Spanish, Serbian, and Basque, and, with little effort, it can be expanded to other languages.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Experimental Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Emmanuel Keuleers & Marc Brysbaert

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  1. Emmanuel Keuleers
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  2. Marc Brysbaert
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Correspondence to Emmanuel Keuleers.

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Keuleers, E., Brysbaert, M. Wuggy: A multilingual pseudoword generator. Behavior Research Methods 42, 627–633 (2010). https://doi.org/10.3758/BRM.42.3.627

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  • Received: 17 December 2009

  • Accepted: 14 March 2010

  • Issue date: August 2010

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BRM.42.3.627

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Keywords

  • Lexical Decision
  • Lexical Decision Task
  • Edit Distance
  • Language Module
  • Input Word
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